There Should Not Be A Law

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

When you travel, you get a chance to get reacquainted with the USA today, and on the front page of that newspaper, the headline blared “61 bills, Congress is on pace to make history with the least productive legislative year in the post World-War II era.”

Okay, it’s a long headline. And the headline pretty much sums up the story by my friend Sue Davis. It should come as no surprise that the Congress and the current President found little to agree on. And with the Senate pretty much taking the year off (they haven’t passed a budget in three years, for example), this story doesn’t necessarily fit into the “news” category.

Doug Heye, another friend, and the spokesman for Majority Leader Eric Cantor, appropriately pinned the blame on the senate, pointing out that the house has passed 30 economic growth measures only to see them die in upper chamber.

But a bigger question should be asked. Don’t we have enough laws? Shouldn’t we start repealing some of the stupid laws that are already on the books? Don’t the American people already live in fear that they are breaking some law somewhere, without even knowing it?

In many ways, the fact that we have little legislative output from Congress is a huge testament to the political courage of House Republicans who finally said that enough is enough. They stopped the aggressive legislative assault from the Democrats in the previous two years.

They didn’t make much progress in repealing stupid laws, but you can’t go in reverse until you stop the car. The Republicans stopped the car. Now it is high time to end some really stupid laws.

Editor’s Note: John Feehery worked for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Republicans in Congress. Feehery is president of Quinn Gillespie Communications. He is a contributor to The Hill’s Pundits Blog and blogs at thefeeherytheory.com.