Listening to Scott Peters This Week

I had a chance to listen to my Congressman, Scott Peters (CA-52) earlier this week.  I should have posted sooner, but not much of what he said in the 15 minutes was very newsworthy.  He comes across as a bit soft spoken and very reasonable sounding, and frankly a lot more appealing personally than the incumbent he defeated in 2012, Brian Bilbray.

He spoke about his work on the House Armed Services Committee, which is important to San Diego, as well as the Science and Technology committee.  He has urged flexibility in how the Pentagon allocates its funding to allow each service to reduce civilian employee furloughs, which was popular with his audience.  He discussed the increasing importance of defending against cyber attacks, but didn't really cover any new ground.

On the budget, he said that the freshman class was characterized by an attitude of wanting to get a deal done that reduced the budget deficit through some sort of compromise.  He said that lack of progress could be attributed to bad blood and memories of previous battles on both sides of the aisle.  He believes that President Obama has actually called for reasonable compromise with the GOP, specifically that entitlements must be reformed.  However, he characterized that in the context of asking for more tax revenue as part of a larger bargain.  I was also struck by the number of times he referred to the Democrat leadership with the term chain of command.

The audience questions were mostly related to cyber threats, furloughs and the direction of the fiscal year 2014 budget. But as I said, little new ground was plowed.

The Congress Does Its Job

You can complain about the way it did its job or what it accomplished, but by passing a continuing resolution for the rest of the year that included specific direction to agencies on spending priorities, the Congress has finally done its job after a four abdication, mostly by Democrats in the Senate, in passing a budget.

The other interesting note is that the liberty movement seems to be winning the war, despite losing many battles.  Lower spending based on sequestration has locked in.  No new taxes were proposed.  The government is on a trajectory to spend less.  You could argue that without entitlement reform, these spending reductions will be overwhelmed by entitlement spending increases.  I have made that argument myself.  But I believe this sets the stage for the Congress to start believing it can restore its rightful place in our Constitutional order, and perhaps craft a deal on entitlements as well.  I guarantee that if that happens, I won't be happy, and my readers won't be happy.  The left won't be happy either, but the Republic will muddle through and the dynamism of our economy will cover a lot of sins in the capital.

I am one of the employees who still might face a furlough, so I have followed the budget closely.  It was interesting to see the Congress reassert its authority, by changing some spending priorities, setting limits on flexibility, and in general restoring some of its authority.  I still don't know if I will be furloughed, but if I am, it looks to be fewer unpaid days off and I will know that it wasn't solely because the administration unilaterally made my job a bargaining pawn with the Congress.  Some of the bargaining may still happen, but in a manner more consistent with the Founder's intent.