Tales of Your New Republican Majority!

[bjkeefe]

Here's a fresh thread for GOPtalk (previous general one here; a more narrowly focused one here).

To start it off, I recommend an article by Brian Friel, a staff writer at Congressional Quarterly, appearing in today's NYT. Here's how it starts:

Where Will the G.O.P. Go Digging?

WITH the Republican takeover of the House, Representative Darrell Issa of California will become the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Capitol Hill’s top watchdog panel. As the lead Republican on the panel the last two years, Mr. Issa, a hard-charging, quick-witted former car-alarm company owner, has been the Obama administration’s most aggressive antagonist on spending under the $787 billion economic stimulus package. Starting in January, armed with the power to call hearings and issue subpoenas, he will play lead conductor to the new majority’s other committee chairmen in investigating what he says is a “long list” of oversight targets.

Below, I’ve taken an educated guess as to nine of the issues that Mr. Issa and his colleagues are most likely to look into. While some of those investigations are appropriate, others will be seen as attempts to rack up headlines that could embarrass the Obama administration and the Democratic Party.

And no matter which party is in control of the House, there are always questions about whether the oversight panel and other committees aren’t missing issues crying out for additional scrutiny. So I conducted an informal poll of 14 good-government watchdogs — veterans of the oversight process, former public officials and academics — to propose an alternative set of targets that have been largely ignored by both parties. A steady focus on these issues could reap benefits for taxpayers that would last well beyond the next news cycle.

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[Added] Shameless self-congratulations department.