We're the GOP and We're Sorry
The remarkable non-wretchedness of the GOP minority is one of the great untold stories of this Congress. Everyone's focused on their ability to block anti-surge votes and kneecap the Democrats over troop funding, but they've done yeomanlike work frustrating the Democrats on domestic policy. To wit, the Little Book of Big Government, not much fun to read but awfully promising for its critiques of the Democrats, its critiques of the old DeLay GOP, and its suggestions for future Congresses. Like:
Congress should establish a Sunset Review Process to periodically review existing programs on a set schedule. Congress and the Administration should be required to either reform or terminate programs determined to be wasteful, duplicative, or unnecessary. Absent such reform, funding for these programs should automatically sunset.
I've heard that idea from more outsider-y Republicans for a long time. Forcing new votes on programs is probably the best way to ensure they don't simply rachet up in size every year, and it's far more Constitutional than the line-item veto.
We're too close to the Bush/Hastert nightmare for me to root for a GOP win in 2008, but a weak Democratic president (maybe Weepin' Hillary?) with a Congress like this would be awfully, awfully tolerable.
