Texas Gov. Rick Perry channels the forgotten Republican Revolution with his proposal [1] to reinvent official Washington.
Perry doesn’t call it reinvention, though. It’s “Uproot and Overhaul Washington,” which is much more vivid. On his list are such items as cutting congressional salaries and spending on staff (and making that body part-time). He would term limit federal judges, end baseline budgeting, require a two-thirds majority vote to increase taxes and a great deal more.
It’s a mash-up of Gingrichisms from 1994, the 1996 Lamar Alexander presidential campaign and modern tea party goodness.
The idea of reducing Congress to the part-time branch it once was hasn’t sat well with Steny Hoyer [2], and it will certainly get the clucking tongue treatment from the political class.
However, this is the kind of stuff that gets some conservatives’ blood flowing. Will it help the Perry campaign? We shall see.
But for those who want a quicker, cheaper and even greener approach to making Congress part-time? Ban air conditioning. DC would be a ghost town for about half the year.