Why was I not terribly excited about the GOP retaking the Senate? Here’s why. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have a piece in the Wall Street Journal setting forth their agenda, titled Now We Can Get Congress Going. Here are the first specifics offered:

These bills include measures authorizing the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which will mean lower energy costs for families and more jobs for American workers; the Hire More Heroes Act, legislation encouraging employers to hire more of our nation’s veterans; and a proposal to restore the traditional 40-hour definition of full-time employment, removing an arbitrary and destructive government barrier to more hours and better pay created by the Affordable Care Act of 2010.

Let’s take these three ideas that McConnell and Boehner put front and center, one by one.

Finishing the pipeline is a good idea. It’s a government project, and new government projects are not really the key to turning around what ails this country. But I have no problem with this item. It should indeed be one of their first priorities. Good for them.

As for “Hire More Heroes” . . . this is just increased government interference in the free market. Businesses will hire you if you can provide them something that will make them money. Allowing businesses to do this in an unrestrained way — which government never does — allows businessmen to calculate profit and loss, and allocate resources in such a manner that benefits society at large. Monkey around with that and there are always unintended consequences. If veterans want to be hired, they need to provide a skill or service that the marketplace demands, not rely on artificial rules set by the federal government. Next!

Restoring “the traditional 40-hour definition of full-time employment” is just tinkering with ObamaCare to make it more palatable to businesses. Next!

Republicans should not be telling us about the new legislation they will pass. They should be telling us about the old legislation they will repeal — and why repealing it will help the common man. There is, low down in the bullet points in the second half of the article, the typical lip service paid to eliminating regulations and so forth. But there is no explanation as to why the free market is important, no details about how the federal government interferes with it, and no real plan to do anything about that interference. There is lip service paid to the idea of reducing our absurd and unsustainable debt, but no real plan about how to do that either.

It’s hard to believe anyone takes any of this seriously.

The last time Republicans were in control of Congress and the White House, we got a shiny new prescription drug benefit and not much that addressed our long-term problems. What will be different in 2016, even if a Republican does win?