It's revolutionary!

On Politico this afternoon, there is an article describing the radical new process that Republicans in the House want to use in connection with appropriations. Politico sniffs that the new process will needlessly tie up the House and quotes and old hand to the effect that Speaker Boehner ought to speak first to someone who is actually an appropriator before adopting such rules. So what you may ask are these outrageous new rules? The main part of the answer is this: under GOP leadership, separate appropriations bill will be required for each federal department. No longer can Interior, Commerce, and two other departments come under one omnibus bill. by having a separate bill for each department with separately listed items for each major program, the members of Congress and the public will actually be able to see what the federal government is spending all those trillions of dollars to accomplish. In other words, the new Republican process which the media puts down is, in actual fact, the "transparancy" that Obama promised to cheers in the press, but which he failed to deliver to even the slightest extent.

In addition to separate bille for each department, there will also be an institutionalization of weekly votes for spending cuts and savings, with the stated goal of going from a spending culture to a saving culture. There are some other spending limitations to be imposed as well.

I find it amazing that the media is already out there decrying the new Republican proposals. Of course, this is the same media that announced that the attempt by the GOP to add a provision requiring background checks for childcare workers was actually a plan to deny free lunches to poor children.

In any event, I hope that the GOP House leadership follows through with these plans. We already know that the current appropriation system does not work. Witness that the Democrats with their large majorities have yet to pass even one spending bill for the current fiscal year which began months ago. The new Republican efforts may die in the Senate or on with obama's veto pen, but at least they will be trying to improve things. that will be a start in a city where nothing good has happened for years.