Only a few days left to Double your gift

On Friday, Congress will begin its five-week recess. At 3:00 p.m., the doors to the Capitol will swing open and congressmembers will come bounding down the old marble steps, peeling off jackets and ties, tossing water balloons, creating mayhem. Congressional districts across the country will brace for all sorts of hijinks, many passing special curfews for federal politicians to keep things from getting too out of hand.

Having put in a good half-year’s work, Congress is scrambling to wrap up all the important loose ends. You know, like revisiting the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. So, a House subcommittee scheduled two hearings for this week to review the amendments “piece by piece,” as Politico puts it.

Now, you may ask: Why would we need to revisit the Clean Air Act? The answer is simple. Despite the fact that the amendments passed by overwhelming majorities, Republicans now realize that the Clean Air Act has been brutal for jobs. It’s just as Milton Friedman said:

The Clean Air Act’s unduly stringent and extremely costly provisions could seriously threaten this nation’s economic expansion.

Exactly! Milton Friedman, right once again! I mean, look at how these key economic indicators did in the decade after Friedman said that and the law went into effect.

Kind of says it all! That rapidly dropping dark line is unemployment. The red line is personal income; the blue one, gross domestic product. Devastating. Obviously, America barely survived the 1990s, and it’s all the Clean Air Act’s fault.

So God bless those humble legislators who are doing their due diligence in these waning hours before summer break. Take a look at that horrible legislation, guys! Put America back to work! Of course, you’ll have to put up with complaints from that job-hating Socialist president, who was so brazen as to say this:

This bill means cleaner cars, cleaner power plants, cleaner factories, and cleaner fuels; and it means a cleaner America. Virtually every person in every city and every town will enjoy its benefits. … It is simply the most significant air pollution legislation in our nation’s history, and it restores America’s place as the global leader in environmental protection.

Those, of course, are the words of noted commie George H. W. Bush, the guy who signed the amendments into law.

That guy hated America so much.