GOP Rebels Need to Take the Win – WSJ

It includes new provisions for accountability and transparency. Proxy voting is history, as are virtual committee meetings. It requires a 72-hour rule to give members time to read legislation. It ends Democrats wild experiment with staffer unionization, which threatened to tie the chamber up with crazy demands.

And it makes it much harder for the House to tax and spend. It imposes a cut go rule requiring any mandatory spending increases be offset with equal or greater mandatory spending cuts. A three-fifths supermajority vote will be required for tax increases. It revives what s known as the Holman rule, allowing appropriations bills effectively to defund the salaries of specific executive-branch officials or specific programs. It also requires each committee to submit an oversight plan that lays out what action it intends to take on unauthorized or duplicative programs.

These changes will produce the first functioning House in years, even as they tie the hands of spenders. Take the win! Instead, the rebels continue to hold out for provisions that have the potential to negate this victory by plunging the House back into chaos. At the top of the list is the continued demand to allow any Republican member to call for a motion to vacate the chair essentially a snap vote to oust the speaker.

via www.wsj.com

Kimberley A. Strassel