More Self-Serving By Our Privileged Congress

Congress was suddenly faced with a calamity. The media was reporting delays of 1200 flights a day because of the sequester’s furloughing of air traffic controllers, but they had to get home for yet another break, a week off after the two weeks they just took for Easter. They shouldn’t have to wait like just plain civilians whom the sequester was greatly inconveniencing — and never mind that the sequester is a law that they themselves had passed.

So they voted funds to return the controllers to work full time. And Obama signed it. Evidently he negotiated with himself and decided that Congress owed him nothing in return for this favor. Perhaps he thinks Congress will now be inspired to cooperate with him; that has gone so well in the past. Besides, the unions and airlines were clamoring for it.

Those who are all for cutting the deficit should be outraged to see Congress spending on themselves. Those who think it is not the time for austerity are disgusted that interest groups are served but all other sequester cuts remain in force, principally social programs that aid the poor. All should be angry that Congress refused to at least rework the spending cuts, allotting more here and less there according to priorities, instead leaving unchanged the “meat axe” approach of uniform cuts across the board.

Ah, but there’s more. Politico is reporting that “Congressional leaders in both parties”, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Nv) and House Speaker John Boehner (R, Oh), “are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides” from buying their health insurance on the exchanges that the Affordable Care Act sets up. The law deliberately requires that the legislators’ insurance plans are bought for them on the exchanges in their states so that their benefits are no different from their constituents.

The hypocrisy of trying to wriggle free of Obamacare’s egalitarian mandate and instead have the government pay for more lavish plans should drop Congressional approval even below the 9% cited in recent polls, once the word of this maneuver spreads. It should be interesting to watch whether Obama caves in once again, which this time would be his rescinding a provision of his own signature law.