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NOBODY MOVE, AND NOBODY WILL GET HURT
When it comes to Congress, is gridlock good?
Some Americans believe that having Democrats control one chamber of Congress, and Republicans the other, is good because a gridlocked Congress can’t do much harm.
But Pat Toomey, president of the Club for Growth, which supports tax cuts and limited government, told reporters at a breakfast Thursday that any time Democrats have any power, Congress will cause trouble.
“We saw some pretty bad legislation pass when there was divided government recently,” he said, referring to the period between May 2001 and December 2002 when Democrats controlled the Senate. During that time, Congress passed a farm bill to provide agricultural subsidies and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to further regulate corporate accounting.
Toomey described each law as “terrible.”
“So I don’t subscribe to the view that divided government is great because nothing happens,” he said.
— Marilyn Geewax
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