The Looooooongest Day

No, I’m not talking about the Summer Solstice or that 1962 John Wayne movie. What I’m talking about is our Congress and a political move so twistedly creative that no Hollywood screenwriter could ever imagine it. Republican leadership in our House of Representatives has managed to challenge the workings of the Universe and change the length of a day. Ever since language made its way into our brains, we have agreed that a day is how long it takes the Earth to rotate once on its axis. Well, not to be held back by their brains, republicans in Congress have decided that a day is now about 365 days long. Wait a second. That makes no sense. A day is now about 131,400 Earth spins long. Yeah, that makes more sense.

So, who has inspired the GOP to tinker with the workings of celestial mechanics? None other than that most inspirational of characters, Donald Trump. Here’s the deal. Trump, as leader of the Executive branch of government, does not have the power to levy taxes. That power belongs to Congress. That means he can’t put tariffs on imports and, contrary to what he might tell you, a tariff is a tax. So, how is he managing to slap 25% tariffs on stuff coming from Mexico and Canada?

Trump can declare an emergency through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act which allows him to do lots of stuff he normally wouldn’t have the power to do. And one of the things he can do is impose tariffs. Problem solved, right? Now, all we have to do is find an emergency. We could always target the overwhelming politeness spilling over from Canada. I mean, it does make the rest of us look bad; doesn’t it? Or how about the disproportionate number of hockey players coming from north of the border? No, that’s skating a little close to DEI and we don’t want that. Well, our President settled on the flood of fentanyl coming from Canada. Now there’s an emergency you can get your teeth, or nostrils, into. According to CPB we seized over 27,000 pounds of fentanyl last year. Forty-three pounds pounds of which came across the border from Canada. That amounts to about one tenth of one percent. So yeah, lets declare an emergency at the northern border so we can start slapping tariffs on maple syrup and hockey pucks.

The IEEPA also allows Congress to counteract a Presidential declaration of emergency by voting to end it. Essentially Congress can look at the situation and decide whether or not it constitutes an emergency. It’s part of that checks and balances stuff the President is so crazy about. House democrats, in an effort to stop the economic free-fall, decided to make use of this provision and hold a vote to un-emergency the presidential declaration. Ah but house republicans are more imaginative than we give them credit for. They noticed that, once introduced, the House has 15 days to cast a vote. So, in a stroke of pure, evil genius, they decided to lengthen the day. Yep, let’s not debate the merits or argue the good points and bad points. Let’s make the day really, really long. In order to do that they could “A:” stop the Earth’s rotation or “B:” change the definition of “day”. Thank God they chose “B”.

Some of the more enthusiastic in that body wanted a day to last until a new congress is elected in 2026. But in the spirit of compromise, and these folks are all about compromise, it was decided that a day would just last to the end of this year. This brilliant little piece of sophistry was slipped, last minute, into the continuing resolution bill to keep the government running for a few more months. Good job you guys. I’m not sure we want this government running for the next few minutes much less months. I can’t wait to see their take on up and down.

Every day seems to bring another outrage. The overwhelming amount of mind-numbing idiocy coming from Washington is hard to keep up with. I’ve given our situation a lot of thought and this is what I’ve noticed. Push-back from the unwashed masses, from you and I, seems to get noticed. So, here’s my suggestion. Once or twice a week send your representative a message and keep it simple. We don’t want to tax them (pun intended). Just say: “Have you had enough yet?” Send an email. Leave a voicemail. Write a letter. I think the only way out of this is for Congress to do it's job and stand up to this dictator wana-be in the Whitehouse. Just make it a simple question: “Have you had enough yet?” If enough of us do this every week, we may be able to save what’s left of our republic.