Virginia lawmakers are bemoaning the meager work accomplished in Washington in 2014. A look at how some lawmakers fear 2015 may once again bring stiff budget cuts that would hurt the state’s economy.
The 113th Congress was so unmemorable, it will likely be confined to a footnote in history books: it's the second least productive Congress in modern history. Lawmakers may be best remembered for shutting down the government, which cost the economy some twenty four billion dollars. That was a 20-13 battle but things didn't improve much in 20-14, according to Northern Virginia Democratic Congressman Jim Moran.
“It’s just about the most dysfunctional, ineffective Congress, well, in history – certainly since I’ve been around.”
Lawmakers in both parties aren't happy with their record in 20-14. House Republicans sent hundreds of bills to the Senate that sat untouched, while a major Senate passed Immigration reform bill, along with other bipartisan bills, sat untouched in the lower chamber. Northern Virginia Democratic Congressman Gerry Connolly says it wasn't a great year for lawmaking.
“Here on the Hill it was a frustrating year. It was one of...the least productive Congress' on record. And serious business did not get addressed. So this Congress punted on immigration reform, tax reform, student loan reform, postal reform, a long-range transportation and infrastructure investment plan. And you know, that just puts it off until another Congress.”
Connolly says it was personally a good year. Connolly and Conservative firebrand Darrell Issa are usually on the other side of pitched partisan battles, but the two put their talking points down and worked together for the past four years to transform the federal government’s IT acquisition process. Currently the government has more than seven thousand data centers. Connolly says their bill will finally try to consolidate that to a little over a hundred in order to stem headaches.
“I think the roll out of the health care website underscored the problems the federal government has in managing information technology acquisition.”
There have been other headaches in 20-14, namely down in the state’s coal fields. Virginia Republican Congressman Morgan Griffith has tried to combat and defund the EPA so the agency can’t implement new rules on the energy industry. Still, the U-S is producing more energy than ever, though Griffith maintains that’s not Presidnet Obama’s doing.
“Oh absolutely it’s in spite of the President. That boom has happened on private land where the President didn't have the authority to shut them down. It has not happened offshore where it could have happened.”
At the end of 20-13 lawmakers were able to put sequestration off for two years. In October 20-15 that budget deal expires, which has Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner nervous.
“That was a small – a two-year reprieve from the stupidity of sequestration. But it comes rushing back next year. You know I’m glad to see the annual deficit come down dramatically. But with now close to eighteen trillion in debt, when interest rates go up one percent, that adds a hundred and twenty billion off the top just in additional debt payments. So the notion of tax reform and entitlement reform being coupled together, that challenge is still out there.”
Still Warner – a former business owner and governor – says he thinks a bipartisan coalition can reach a long-term budget deal.
“I mean, I think conventional wisdom is that people will continue to punt. But my hope is that there will be wiser heads. The sooner we go about doing this, the better predictability we give to the business community with tax reform; and the less dramatic the changes on entitlement reform, the longer we have to phase those changes in.”
Seniority matters on Capitol Hill. And Virginia loses more than seventy years of seniority in 20-15 with the retirements of Democratic Congressman Jim Moran and Republicans Frank Wolf and Eric Cantor - who suffered a stunning primary defeat. Moran and Wolf were both on the spending committee while Cantor was majority leader in the House. Virginia Republican Congressman Randy Forbes says the commonwealth’s lawmakers need to work as a unit going forward.
“And what you have to do is you have to come together. Virginia, though, is unique in that I think we’re still the last delegation or maybe the only delegation that Republicans and Democrats literally come together once a month. We have a small little lunch together and we try to see how we can combine our resources, focus together as a delegation to move Virginia forward. And that will continue forward.”
The 20-16 election campaign gets underway at the end of 20-15, so lawmakers have only a few months to get some serious legislating done before Washington once again gets consumed by the gridlock that comes with a presidential election.