What the next House speaker should do

OPINION:

A version of this story appeared in the On Background newsletter from The Washington Times. Click here to receive On Background delivered directly to your inbox each Friday.

Whatever the legacy media tells you, few of us should care who becomes the speaker of the House. The simple reality is that the speaker is, in most cases, the best vote counter in a particular room. He or she does not create a lasting imprint on American history.

If you doubt that, try a thought experiment. Who was the speaker the day you were born? Now, who was the president the day you were born?

For just about everyone, the answer to one of those is easy and the answer to the other is impossible without resorting to Google.

But let’s pretend for a moment that the Republicans in the House were serious about changing the debate and expanding the range of the possible with respect to the federal government. What could a speaker do to encourage such things and change the trajectory of American history?

Well, one of the speaker’s few useful powers is that he or she can put legislation on the floor for a vote.

Accordingly, the current candidates for speaker should be judged not on what they promise to do or how they can raise cash or whatever. Rather, they should be asked which 10 bills they would place on the floor to change the federal government for the better.

Here’s a starter list. Feel free to crib.

First, the budgeting and spending process is hopelessly broken. We need legislation to institute a two-year budgeting and spending cycle.

We need to increase transparency in the federal government. The Freedom of Information Act should be expanded and simplified, and government agencies should have to post everything already subject to FOIA requests — calendars, memos, etc. — online to make finding the documents easier.

We should vote on freezing government spending — including entitlement and defense spending — until the budget comes into balance.

We should determine the total cost of federal regulations and achieve a net-zero increase in the cost of those regulations with a goal of reducing those costs over time.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island Democrat, has been patient. We should have a vote on his energy tax, which would increase the cost of everything made, grown or transported in these United States.

The participation of the American people in the Paris Agreement on climate change should be confirmed with a vote. Maybe even toss in a vote on banning gasoline-powered cars and trucks just to see if that idea is a winner with voters.

The House should vote on whether people should be allowed to buy any health insurance plan that might work for them.

We should vote on a flat tax and on whether we should tax foundations and university endowments.

We should vote on dismantling the federal government’s institutions that perpetuate reliance on government and replace them with direct payments to those in need.

Finally, let’s vote on term limits for our elected officials, and while we are there, let’s vote on age limits, too.

If one of the candidates for speaker put that sort of agenda forward, he or she would change the debate in the country and help Republicans and conservatives everywhere refocus their energies and their attention on the truly important issues that elected officials should be addressing.

Unfortunately, the race for speaker has been, as anticipated, reduced to a popularity contest seeded with vague promises about who is going to get better ice cream in the cafeteria and who will be the better advocate for more crayons in the arts and crafts center.

The Republican Party deserves better. The American people deserve better. The nation absolutely requires better.

• Michael McKenna, a columnist for The Washington Times, is president of MWR Strategies.