Halfway There

Now that the Democrats have lost the House and significantly lost their majority in the Senate of the 112th Congress, it is time to pause and reflect on the accomplishments of the 111th Congress. The blog post I wrote at the halfway mark of the 111th Congress at the start of 2010 recognizes 2.5 victories that will move the country forward. This note will add to what has already been mentioned.

The first victory also happens to complete the 0.5 victory from last year and that is the passage of the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act in the Senate. The merits of the bill were listed previously, but I would be remiss if I did not point out the manner of horror in which this was passed. SAFRA passed as a rider to the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 or what I have been calling Romney-care (also referred to as Obama/Kennedy/Romney-care). My position on this health insurance reform debacle has been made known many times, so I will not get into it here. The passage of SAFRA in and of itself merits a place on my list this year, even if it means a bailout of health insurance companies in perpetuum too.

The second victory this year is something I challenged Congress to do last year, which is to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The double whammy in the 111th Congress of the Matthew Shepherd Act and the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 shows that despite all the other compromises and misplaced values of the Democratic Party, gay rights is the one issue they got right and more importantly got results. Unfortunately, the Employee Non-Discrimination Act floundered once again in Congress, however, this should not overshadow the momentousness victory the 111th Congress has achieved in terms of gay rights. While there is always work to be done at the individual level in promoting equality, I look forward to the day when (an amended) ENDA passes so I know that at least legally, the United States federal government has done all it can in promoting equal rights for non-straight Americans.

The final victory of the 111th Congress is the ratification of New START, which is the nuclear arms treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation. This treaty is an important and essential step toward a long and difficult road towards a nuclear-weapons-free future. Nuclear weapons are one of the most anti-life practices in which the human race has ever engaged, because it kills disproportionally and indiscriminately. The New START will also make our nation and world safer by encouraging other nations to meet their non-proliferation responsibilities and control nuclear materials, reducing the likelihood that a nuclear weapon will fall into the hands of sub-national entities that wish to terrorize civilians.

That is the end of the 111th Congress. We have five concrete victories to put up on the refrigerator and that really puts things in perspective. Throughout the year, concerned citizens are always dogging their Congressmembers and critiquing the way the Obama Administration is doing its job. Things never go the way we plan, but it is important to periodically step back and reflect on what we have actually done right for this country. Now it is up to the 112th Congress to tackle the biggest issue our country has been facing for the past 25 years: a crushing public debt that equals our country's GDP. The next Congress must put our federal budget on a sustainable path of not only having no deficit, but one that will pay off our public debt in a way that gives a preferential option for the poor and vulnerable in our society and encourages the wealthy to realize their obligation to their fellow Americans. We cannot balance the budget without both cutting programmes and raising taxes.