Immortality awaits the legislator fortunate enough to have a significant law named after him. Think of Pell grants or Stafford loans for students, Sarbanes-Oxley to regulate Wall Street, or the Hyde Amendment on abortions.
The President's budget pays for only six months of the war in Iraq and completely overlooks the transition costs of Social Security reform. The Administration always lied about the cost of the Medicare drug bill.
Aging nations have arteries clogged with obsolete laws, slowing blood flow and preventing oxygen from reaching all parts of the body politic. Physicians call this arteriosclerosis; historians see decline of empire.
With our national savings rate well below one-percent, it is imperative that the government embrace innovative and cost-effective means of boosting personal savings.
When I first came to Congress, the party was supposed to help you. Now, when a new member is sworn in, he or she is told what their dues are - how much they are expected to raise for the party for the next election. It's worse in the Senate. It turns the whole place into a money machine.
Take the veto. Bush is the first president since James Garfield in 1881 not to veto a single bill. Garfield only had six months in office; Bush has had over four years.
