The Legislative Branch has Become Poison Oak

[Geee]

American Thinker:

Departing Senator Voinovich quipped that we could solve America's problems by blowing up the Senate. Perhaps the inspiration for that flippant remark came from President Obama's mentor and former Weather Underground leader, Bill Ayers. While it's tempting to agree with Voinovich, there probably are laws that prevent the rest of us from even joking about such things. Still, with all the debate over "gridlock" in the upcoming 112th Congress, it is quite enlightening to reflect on what the past two Congresses have wrought.

In Washington alone, there are hundreds of lawmakers, thousands of congressional staffers, and more than ten thousand lobbyists. Could society possibly be worse off if not one of them had showed up for work over the past four years? As a more civilized alternative to Senator Voinovich's metaphor, suppose instead we had bussed them all to Salinas in January 2007, and paid them pick lettuce. Yes, the price of lettuce would be $50 per head, but what damages might America have avoided during that period?

As politician Al Smith liked to say, let's look at the record. Suppose Congress had not done the following: