GOP Planning Vacation Schedule For 112th Congress

by Stuart Shapiro

Incoming  Majority Leader Eric Cantor is working on the schedule for the next session of the House of Representatives.  Perhaps reacting to Republican reluctance to give up their Christmas vacation, Cantor is proposing one week off for every two weeks of work.  Freshman Rep. Allen West is not happy:

“As we know, Congress needs to work to create jobs, reduce the deficit, strengthen our economy, limit the size of government and contend with a plethora of national security issues,” West said Thursday in a statement. “How are we to do that when, among other things, we start off being in session only ten days the entire month of January?”

Harry Truman, after huge losses in the 1946, won reelection by running against the “do-nothing” Congress.  It looks like President Obama may get the opportunity to do the same.  Of course, in my view, “doing nothing” may be a best-case scenario for the policies coming out of the House in 2011-2012.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.