The 112th Congress

Today the 112th United States Congress will commence work. This Congress was elected on November 2, 2010. An election in which the American people decided that the nearly unopposed agenda of President "Not Bush" Obama was inherently dangerous to the future of the United States. They therefore elected the "Not Obama" party into the majority rule of the House of Representatives. The "Not Bush" party managed to maintain majority control of the senate, only because there were a handful of "Not Obama" Senate candidates that could not even win while riding the "Not Obama" coattails.

(yes, I have renamed the Democratic party as the "Not Bush" party since their platform since 2002 has effectively been "we're not Bush!". The Republican party was finally able to turn the table and become the "Not Obama" party in 2010. So yes, the Republican party has certainly earned the reputation of being the party of 'NO' - they are, after all, 'Not Obama').


The MSM (Main Stream Media) and the NB/NO blogosphere will pay attention to this Congress until the summer recess, after which point they will focus on who will be the official "Not Obama" candidate to run against President "I'm still not Bush" Obama in 2012.  While Congress is in the spotlight, there will be a lot of rhetoric around the word "jobs."  Even Nancy Pelosi, head of the NBs, wrote an opinion in today's USA Today saying they are ready to work with the NOs to focus on job creation.  That begs the obvious question "what exactly were you doing the last 2 years Ms. Pelosi" but I digress.

The S&P 500 Companies are holding cash reflecting approximately 10% of their value, compared to historically 6% of their value.  THAT IS A LOT OF CAPITAL NOT BEING PUT TO WORK.  Why do companies hoard cash?  Simple.  They don't know what the future holds.  Too much uncertainty over what exactly they will be mandated to do by Congress.  So in my humble opinion Congress needs to focus on 3 and only 3 things while they are in the spotlight:

1. Do something with health care.  Personally, the health care bill passed last year is a complete and total disaster.  Regardless of whether you agree with that statement or not, a lot of the cash corporate America is not using is because of so much uncertainty over government mandated health care.  Providing direction will help ease this uncertainty.
 
2. Rein in Federal Spending.  The annual deficit as a % of Gross Domestic Product is over 10%.  This is the highest since World War II.  Whether or not you agree the federal government should run a deficit, the fact is that this high of a deficit is not sustainable.  Provide us a roadmap on how the government plans to rein in spending.  Oh and implement it (remember the farce of Graham-Rudman-Hollings in the 80s?).  Corporate America is holding onto cash in case they become overtaxed.  Again, good information will help!
 
3. Remember Small Businesses.  The United States is the world's best country due to the the ingenuity from entrepreneurs that all start small.  The Not Bush administration generally seems to ignore small business since they are too small to unionize and turn into reliable NB members.  Seriously, is there any other reason for President Not Bush to ignore Small Business?  Congress should come up with good ideas to help kick start the economy from the ground up - by helping small businesses get access to capital.

Pretty simple.  Corporate America has the cash to do a lot more good than any "stimulus" will do.  So enable it!  And get out of the way.

One more request - please kill "Cap and Trade."  Please.  Trading Carbon Credits has nothing to do with the climate.  Really.


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