A Short Agenda for Congress During the Lame Duck Session

After last night’s election the country is preparing for a lame duck session of Congress. Interestingly enough, the term “lame duck” came about in the 18^th century as it referred to bankrupt businessmen, who were thought of as “lame” in the sense that their powers were diminished, which left them vulnerable.  A fitting definition considering the country is $17 trillion in debt and very vulnerable financially. In U.S. politics, a lame duck session refers to the legislative session between the election and swearing in of a new Congress.

In reality, a lame duck session means that members of Congress who lost their re-election bid or are retiring will be able to vote on legislation despite the fact that they won’t be held accountable for their votes after the new term begins, which in this case is January 3, 2015.

There will be a temptation to pursue an aggressive agenda during the lame duck session because there is quite a bit of work to do on a number of policy areas.  But, the truth is that Congress should take a deep breath and limit their action to three items; passing a continuing resolution to keep the government functioning, passing Defense authorization, and passing a permanent extension of the Internet access tax moratorium.

First, Congress needs to pass a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown. It is unrealistic to think that Congress can pass all spending bills in 45 days, considering that they couldn’t pass the spending bills in 10 months.  A continuing resolution also keeps earmarks out of the spending bills, a minor (but important) victory for taxpayers.

Second, the Senate needs to follow the lead of the House and pass a Defense authorization Bill. Earlier this year in the Spring, the House moved forward and passed their version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The House had an open debate and allowed numerous amendments.  The Senate should follow suit and open up the process and allow for transparent debate and amendment consideration, even as retiring Senate Armed Services Chair Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) made clear he would continue the lack of transparency on NDAA.

The biggest impact the Congress could make would be to make the Internet Access Tax moratorium permanent. The moratorium was set to expire on November 1, 2014, but Congress extended that deadline until December 11, 2014 as part of the continuing resolution that was passed before they adjourned in September.  The Internet Tax Freedom Act in the Senate and the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act of 2013 in the House have bi-partisan support and should be passed immediately.

Allowing the moratorium to expire would be costly.  According to a study by the American Action Forum, “If the state tax rates for wireless were applied, Internet consumers across all of the states could be forced to pay $14.7 billion. Of these taxes, individuals would pay $10 billion, while businesses would pay just under $4.7 billion.”

As the Republicans prepare to take over the Senate and control both chambers, there will be much work to do next year (TPA has a long list of policy recommendations).  But, during the lame duck session of Congress, legislators need to exercise some restraint.