This year the Republican Congress wasn't able to pass legislation overhauling the nation's immigrations laws, privatizing Social Security, substantially reducing the deficit, decreasing the growing number of uninsured or providing any real oversight into the handling of the War in Iraq. So far, they haven't even been able to pass the majority of appropriations bills to keep the government running -- and they aren't likely to until after the election. But luckily, as A.B. Stoddard reports for The Hill, they were able to take the time to rename dozens of post offices.

Post office naming is now the most common form of legislation, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). An analysis by The Hill shows that in 15 years the two parties have achieved parity in the practice. Of the 267 naming bills passed since the beginning of the 102nd Congress, 133 were sponsored by Democrats and 134 were sponsored by Republicans.

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According to a CRS report on post office naming, the 89 such bills passed by the 108th Congress represented one in six public laws, and all but 10 of them originated in the House. In the House bill sponsors are expected to obtain signatures of the entire state delegation. The process, by which the bills are passed under suspension of the rules, has flourished as a universally non-controversial exercise with one recent exception. [emphasis added]

I'm sure it doesn't take a whole heck of a lot of time to pass a resolution naming or renaming a post office, but even still, couldn't and shouldn't members of Congress spend their time a little more wisely? The current Republican Congress is already on track to be in session fewer days than the infamous "Do-Nothing Congress" Harry Truman ran against in 1948, and now we learn that about a sixth of all legislation passed by this Congress related to the naming of a post office.

Stoddard cites Republican Speaker Denny Hastert and House Republican Whip Roy Blunt as opposed to the practice of taking time for the naming of post offices, but if they indeed are they have a funny way of showing it. Under their watch the practice, which was non-existent until 40 years ago and only became more common during the last decade, has proliferated under the watch of the Republicans -- especially Speaker Hastert. This growth provides tangible proof of the "Do Nothingness" and could probably be turned into a fairly effective television commercial before this election is out.

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I heard something really funny on NPR (National Public Radio) this morning.  It was a piece on states suddenly finding surpluses in their coffers.  They got a quote from Arizona State Senator and Republican Dean Martin explaining why its so important to give tax surpluses back to their constituents:

"When you go to a restaurant and you pay the bill, you don't leave your change behind."

I would have driven off the road if I hadn't been stopped at a stop sign.  Man, those Republicans are funny.  The reason you leave some change at the restaurant is because you leave a tip.  Do most Republicans stiff the wait staff?  Let's be somewhat fair .. I bet most Republicans like Dean Martin leave 3-5% tips.  I leave 20% if I liked the food and the service.  Wait staffs rely on tips to make their living, their hourly wage is usually pretty low.

Maybe he didn't pick the best metaphor.

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Yesterday I noted that although the American people would like to see Congress home in on domestic politics, working to fix some of the real problems afflicting this country, the Republican leadership in Washington has decided to continue their do nothing ways and forsake their domestic agenda between now and election day. (The gambit, of course, is that they might win more votes by scaring voters into voting Republican by talking about terrorism and terrorism alone than they would lose by not accomplishing anything on the domestic front.) Now The New York Times' team of Carl Husle and Rachel L. Swarns do a little more digging on the story and report that the Republicans' neglect of domestic politics includes not even trying to pass immigration reform.

As they prepare for a critical pre-election legislative stretch, Congressional Republican leaders have all but abandoned a broad overhaul of immigration laws and instead will concentrate on national security issues they believe play to their political strength.

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A final decision on what do about immigration policy awaits a meeting this week of senior Republicans. But key lawmakers and aides who set the Congressional agenda say they now believe it would be politically risky to try to advance an immigration measure that would showcase party divisions and need to be completed in the 19 days Congress is scheduled to meet before breaking for the election.

I can understand Republicans' apprehensions about bringing up the immigration reform now. The right wing leadership in the House is so right wing that they will never be willing to compromise and find a workable solution to the immigration issues we face today and the President has no political capital, whatsoever, with which to beat his party into submission. What's more, I understand their belief that immigration is better left on the table as a motivator for the base than being passed today.

That all said, it's not clear to me that the ultra-conservative base of the Republican Party will continue to back their leadership in the absence of tangible results. Sure, the conservative GOP leadership is promising a hard right immigration bill, but is there any chance they'll be able to deliver in the next Congress? No. The Republican leadership has promised to overturn Roe for at least 25 years and we still haven't seen the complete rollback of a woman's right to choose sought by the base.

The numbers today are clear. Republican voters are significantly less enthusiastic about the November midterms and seemingly less poised to vote than the Democratic base this year. And unless the status quo is changed significantly before the election (and continuing to not do anything on the immigration front will not change the status quo), I'm finding it difficult to believe that the conservative Republican base is going to turn out to a great enough extent to overcome the Democrats' overwhelming generic congressional ballot lead.

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The latest Opinion Dynamics poll (.pdf) cited yesterday on this site offers an important insight into the electorate: Americans, by close to a four to one margin and regardless of political stripe, believe that it's more important for the Congress to focus on problems here at home than problems abroad. Even with these numbers, however, GOP leaders are giving up completely on their domestic agenda ahead of the midterm elections, as Jonathan Weisman reports today for The Washington Post.

Congress will return to Washington this week with the Republican majorities in both chambers at risk and GOP leaders planning to turn the floors of the House and Senate into battlegrounds over which political party can best protect the country from terrorists and other security threats.

But in devoting the few remaining legislative days almost exclusively to security issues, Republicans will leave major domestic tasks undone, including President Bush's prized immigration overhaul and long-promised legislation to toughen the restrictions on lobbying after a wide-ranging corruption scandal. No budget plan for 2007 will be completed. Promised relief for seniors struggling with their Medicare prescription drug plans will have to wait. And as many as eight of the 11 bills needed to fund the government will not be passed before the November elections.

If Republicans want to run without any recent successes on the domestic policy front and with so many pressing domestic issues still on the table, let them go right ahead. While terrorism is still a potent issue for many voters, it's clear that, even in the wake of the disruption of the alleged plot to blow up British planes bound for America, terrorism no longer has the power to scare voters into voting Republican.

And while the dearth of domestic policy successes will not necessarily lead the Republican base to vote Democratic this fall, without further progress on issues like immigration and tax cuts or the appointment of more rabidly anti-choice jurists to the bench, it's quite possible that conservative voters simply won't go to the polls en mass as they have in the past two elections, which could spell real trouble for the Republican leadership in Congress.

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Last night, the Republican House passed legislation giving Paris Hilton and other wealthy heirs a massive tax cut while also increasing the minimum wage, a move that, according to The Hotline, has caused deep resentment among some Senate Republicans including finance chair Chuck Grassley, who felt "stabbed in the back." And as a result of this bad blood -- as well as, of course, the fact that the bill was poorly written and the two measures have no business being tied together -- the tax cut/minimum wage legislation passed by the House is likely to falter in the Senate, report Joel Havemann and Noam N. Levey for the Los Angeles Times.

The hastily crafted measure almost certainly will die in the Senate, a prospect that several Republican lawmakers acknowledged even as they prepared to cast votes.

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"These are wonderful accomplishments: House Republicans showing results for the American people," said Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), the fourth-ranking Republican in the House. "We didn't want to leave for August without accomplishing both of these."

I'm not quite sure if Deborah Pryce's definition of "accomplishments" and "results" are the same as mine or those of the American people. When Americans say that they want something to get done, as they have on the minimum wage with 85 percent favoring a more than $2 per hour increase, they want it done, not just symbolically passed during the dead of night by legislators who know that their proposal will never actually be enacted into law. Short of actually increasing the minimum wage, this is just a hollow jesture that should not buttress Republicans from the attack that they do not care one lick about working class Americans, particularly those who have to live on the minimum wage.

Americans want to see Congress actually do its job rather than waste time posturing for elections. And given the Republican propensity to put electoral politics above the business of this country (trying to pass a flag burning amendment instead of balancing the budget, trying to ban gay marriage instead of dealing with the situation in Iraq, etc.), playing political games with the minimum wage instead of actually increasing it isn't going to go far in convincing voters that they need to fire the Do Nothing Republican Congress.

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