November 02, 2000

What's Wrong With a Lame-Duck Congress?
Senate Fails to Toughen Bankruptcy Law
Halloween's Over, But Gore Still Scares Seniors

What's Wrong With a Lame-Duck Congress?

Congressional leaders abandoned efforts yesterday to complete a final budget and tax deal with President Clinton before Tuesday's election and began preparing for an unusual "lame-duck" session to wrap up their work for the year, according to The Washington Post.

The decision makes for an extraordinary conclusion to a year of gridlock on Capitol Hill. Not only have the GOP-controlled Congress and the White House agreed to little substantive legislation, they have also gone more than a month into the new fiscal year without agreeing on six of the 13 annual bills that fund the federal government.

The less Congress does, the better, writes Stephen Moore in "What's So Bad About A Do-Nothing Congress?" According to Moore, "Economist Jim Bianco of Arbor Trading Co. has documented that during the past several decades, the stock market performs more than twice as well when Congress is out of session and isn't regulating, taxing, spending or engaging in other meddlesome activities that erase wealth."

Moore warns, however, that federal spending may actually rise faster if Republicans control both the White House and Congress than it has during the Clinton years. "A reduction in gridlock greases the wheels of the legislative process and inspires the regulatory ambitions of legislators," Moore writes.

Senate Fails to Toughen Bankruptcy Law

With many senators out of town campaigning yesterday, Senate Republicans failed to win enough votes to limit debate and allow a final vote on a bill to make it harder for consumers to wipe out debt through bankruptcy, according to The Washington Post. The delay means that the bill, passed by voice vote in the House last month, either is dead for this congressional session or that the Senate will have to take it up in a lame duck session after the Nov. 7 elections.

In "How to Fix U.S. Personal Bankruptcy Law," Michelle J. White explains that households have a financial incentive to file for bankruptcy, since the value of debts erased by bankruptcy is greater than the amount that must be repaid plus the cost of filing. She urged Congress to obligate persons filing for bankruptcy to repay debt from both assets and future earnings. In the Regulation magazine article "Bankruptcy Reform: Principles and Guidelines," Joseph Pomykala explains the origins and state of bankruptcy in the United States.

Halloween's Over, But Gore Still Scares Seniors

Vice President Al Gore told elderly and middle-age voters yesterday in a campaign sweep across central Florida that Gov. George W. Bush's Social Security proposals would threaten their retirement and the country's economic well-being, according to The New York Times.

"Join with me," Gore told his audience at a civic center this morning in Kissimmee, near Orlando, "and we won't make promises just to break them. We'll keep our promises to the seniors who gave us everything that we have today."

In "Voters Deserve the Truth on Social Security," Social Security Analyst Andrew G. Biggs writes that "the latest Social Security attack ads from Vice President Gore and the Democratic Party cross the line from “fuzzy math” to outright falsehoods." He debunks several claims made by Gore and concludes by writing that "contrary to what Vice President Gore says, personal accounts will save today ’s surpluses for Social Security without cutting benefits for current retirees. The Democrats’ latest senior-scaring scheme is little more than an attempt to derail a popular reform proposal in the closing moments of a presidential campaign."

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