COLUMN: Boehner with a beard: Paul Ryan's legacy of surrender

On Friday, Dec. 18, 2015, Congress held up a white flag and surrendered its constitutional authority to make laws and to regulate spending on behalf of the United States government.

Instead, Congress has decided to give the president whatever he wants, however much it costs, because they are terrified of being accused of shutting down the government if they insist on responsible spending, representative government, and constitutional separation of powers.

In a span of two days, Congress received a 2,000 page bill that authorizes spending $1.1 trillion on a smorgasbord of hundreds of programs both good and bad, and then passed it with hardly any discussion because... well, um, because they wanted to get home for the Christmas break!

Does anyone really need any further evidence that Congress is doing what is good for Congress and not what is good for the country?

This travesty was set in motion by John Boehner, the former speaker of the House, but new speaker Paul Ryan cannot escape blame. He has shown no inclination to respect the people’s will, nor to do the people’s business. He is just Boehner with a beard.

In December 2014, Boehner crammed through his own travesty of a spending bill that was infamously called Cromnibus — defined as the combination of a short-term continuing resolution (or CR) and a long-term omnibus spending bill and thus a CRomnibus bill. But there are several other germane allusions in the name which should not be ignored. It represents the worst of CRony capitalism or just plain CRony establishmentarianism. It also includes a subtle hint of crumminess, which is defined variously as wretched or contemptible, words that certainly apply when describing Congress.

By wrapping funding for hundreds of programs up in one last-minute take-it-or-leave-it bill the week before Christmas, Congress has abrogated its responsibility to make reasoned, measured judgments about what to fund out of the public treasury. Some of the programs are essential and should have been funded weeks or months ago. Unfortunately, all too many of the programs are an insult to the American people and Congress should have been brave enough (wise enough?) to have rejected those funding requests out of hand.

Here are some of the programs that Republicans (the majority party in both houses of Congress) vehemently oppose, but which Republican leadership in Congress acceded to without a fight:

— Funding for sanctuary cities. The murder of 32-year-old Kate Steinle by a repeat-criminal illegal immigrant in San Francisco outraged America, but not Paul Ryan. He allowed funding to continue for law-breaking sanctuary cities.

— Funding for the president’s illegal executive order to give amnesty to DREAMers, the propaganda name for illegal immigrants who came to the United States as minors.

— Funding for President Obama’s highly unpopular refugee-resettlement efforts will continue unabated. So will the outrageous program to resettle illegal immigrants in the heartland of the country when they are captured. Why settle them anywhere when we have so many buses and planes available to send them back where they came?

— Funding an increase in H-2B foreign worker visas is a blatant example of crony capitalism running the show. This is the visa program that Disney and other employers have used to import foreign workers to replace Americans. Adding insult to injury, Disney used the American workers to train their own replacements!

Those are some of the most blatant examples of Congress legislating against the interests of their constituents, but by no means the only ones. A vast majority of Republican voters would never consent to send their representatives to Congress to vote for this mess, but that’s just what lots of them did. So what’s the explanation?

Call it corruption.

No, the congressmen and women and senators weren’t bribed, at least not monetarily, but a CRomnibus bill guarantees votes by larding the bill with programs that are not controversial, but might have a difficult time winning funding were normal order being followed. Senators and representatives have a hard time turning their back on millions of dollars that can be spent in their home district or state.

A prime example is the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a useful program that uses royalties from offshore drilling to pay for conservation projects across the country. That program has funded many park and recreation resources in Montana, but that doesn’t mean it qualifies for automatic renewal. In fact, it expired on Oct. 1, and you could easily make the case that when the federal government is running a $19 trillion debt, a better use could be found for nearly a billion dollars in oil and gas royalties every year.

Apparently, that better use is “buying” votes from members of Congress so that they will accept the horrible consequences of a runaway budget process in order to brag back home about what goodies they procured. Sadly, freshman Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Montana, who has generally been a reliable vote for common sense, got caught up in the game and let himself be played by Speaker Ryan. He sold his conservative credentials for a mess of potage, bragging about how he “made history” by lifting the ban on crude oil exports. Somehow, I think most Montanans would rather see him make history by standing up to a lawless president and a spendthrift Congress.

For the record, both of Montana’s senators — one from each party — voted against “CRomnibus 2.” Steve Daines, freshman Republican, said the “200-page backroom deal... only takes our nation further down an unsustainable path of more unbridled spending and more debt.” Two-term Democrat Jon Tester, like Daines, acknowledged that the massive bill included some programs he supported, but said his biggest concern is that “this bill saddles our kids and grandkids with over $680 billion in additional debt.”

Way to go, senators. If we as a nation want to insist on bipartisanship, that’s a good place to begin. But until a majority of Congress feels the same way, it is just the beginning of the end. America cannot survive if its leaders are afraid to do the right thing.

Instead, they must be made to suffer the consequences when they don’t do the right thing. Hopefully Paul Ryan will go the same way as former Majority Leader Eric Cantor and former Speaker Tom Foley. Vote the bums out.

Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake. If you don’t like his opinion, stop by the office and he will gladly refund your two cents.  E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com