The left-wing media seems to think that inaction on Capitol Hill, such as not passing new laws to increasingly regulate the lives of everyday Americans, especially since the Republicans took charge of the House a year ago, is a sign of “dysfunction” and “paralysis.”
Not surprisingly, Rep. Matt Gaetz has a different take.
Reacting to a recent New York Times report decrying a lack of new federal laws, the Fort Walton Beach Republican said the House is way busier under GOP leadership and that sometimes that work involves saving Americans from living with more government intrusion.
In its report, the Times noted that in 2022, under the Democrats’ control, the House took 549 votes and passed 248 bills that President Joe Biden actually signed into law.
Some of those bills included Biden’s massively expensive $2 trillion infrastructure bill, the Inflation Reduction Act that included tens of billions of dollars for a bunch of federally subsidized giveaways to the green energy industry and funding for 87,000 new IRS agents, and new gun control legislation.
Under Republicans in 2023, however, the House passed only 27 bills that became law, despite taking 724 votes, an increase of 32% over 2022.
According to the Times’ narrative, which was offered as a news article and not an opinion piece, the House’s GOP-led agenda “doesn’t involve much governing at all.”
The left-wing outlet lamented that the Republican-led House conducted “more voting and less lawmaking than at any other time in the last decade,” and that its “accomplishments” in 2023 were “less ambitious and more bare minimum.”
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The Times claimed that this demonstrated the “dysfunction” within the House that has led to “extraordinary chaos and paralysis.”
“The numbers reflect the challenges that have plagued Republicans all year and are likely to continue, and maybe even get worse, in 2024,” the Times noted.
One of those “challenges,” according to the Times, is “a right-wing whose priority is reining in government, not passing new laws to broaden its reach.”
Gaetz argued that’s the point.
Gaetz said he and others were the “firebrands” who were responsible for the uptick in voting as they demanded more votes and transparency in the legislative process.
“Maybe effectiveness in Congress isn’t all the new laws you can make. Maybe it’s things you block and stop from happening that are hurting people,” Gaetz argued in contrast to the Times.
“It ain’t exactly like we’re drawing up the Magna Carta here on the legislation that’s passing,” he continued.
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The congressman pointed out that the 27 bills that did become law included measures to rename two federal buildings, the creation of a new stamp and a new coin, and moving the boundaries of a Native American reservation near San Diego.
“Is this the cowbell you want more of?” Gaetz asked, referring to a famous “Saturday Night Live” skit by Will Farrell. “Is this the winning you aren’t tired of?”
“I’m not here to do a bunch of Mother’s Day resolutions, coins and stamps and building renamings. That’s a bunch of crap. We have to do the real work,” he said.
Which means getting serious about issues such as the border crisis, spending, the control of bureaucrats, and the weaponization of the government against conservatives.
“Maybe this is how to be productive. Maybe you have to send a shock through the system that gets people thinking in a different way,” he continued.
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