Has Congress imposed a secret austerity plan? In the past, I remember every office in Congress had at least one calendar on the wall. That is either not the case now or if they have calendars, no one is turning the pages.

Democrats currently running Congress appear to be stuck in December 2016, wondering how Hillary lost and what they can do about getting rid of the winner. Grasping at straws doesn’t begin to define their desperate mindset and monomaniacal focus. 

At first it was maximizing the leaks and innuendo concerning the Mueller Report. That was a two-year holding pattern as they waited for the report to be released. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi spent much of the time holding back demands to begin impeachment proceedings, content in the certainty there would be plenty of time for a successful, publicly-supported impeachment process after Mueller blessed the effort.

Only the Mueller Report turned out to be one of the largest nothingburgers since the Jeb Bush presidential campaign. But rather than dampen impeachment fever, that failure only served to increase it.

Now Pelosi has started formal impeachment procedures based on a rumor that generated a whistleblower complaint from a partisan Democrat. The rumor concerned a phone call President Trump made to the president of the Ukraine. Trump asked him to look into the past firing of a prosecutor under the former regime who was investigating then Vice President Joe Biden’s son.

The friendly fire potential of this “scandal” threatens to damage Democrats more than it does Trump.

For his part, the president hasn’t been on top of the passage of time, either. He vacillates between 2015 (before he was president) and 2016, just after he won and discovered he was under investigation.

In the almost three years since he was sworn in, Trump still hasn’t learned the walls have ears and most of the ears belong to the left. The intelligence services and the Dept. of Justice are filled with people who are double agents. Ostensibly they’re working for the administration, but in reality they are biding their time leaking damaging information and when that doesn’t exist they use their position to just invent scandals from whole cloth.

Instead of conducting himself circumspectly, Trump still lets it all hang out. Every day. Then when he’s not letting his loose lips sink ships, he’s looking to pay back past Russia collusion delusion injustices on Twitter.

One would almost think there are no problems here in the U.S., so our elected leaders can devote themselves to internal power struggles and issue irrelevancies. But that most certainly is not the case. Illegal immigration, the opioid crisis and trade are all major problems that require action concerted action.

Democrats are now a defacto open borders party that has sold out to illegal immigration fanatics. There is no feasible middle ground between Trump and the left. A solution requires a president and Congress controlled by the same party, which is sometime in the future.

There should be some area for unity regarding the opioid crisis. Neither side has taken an extreme stance that prevents compromise. What’s lacking here are concrete proposals that can be discussed and explored. No one in congressional leadership has taken the initiative and it doesn’t appear to be a top priority in the White House.

Finally, we have trade where two of the three requirements exist.

In between tweet storms the president has managed to negotiate two new trade agreements with Canada and Mexico. Congress has both agreements and has done nothing toward ratifying or rejecting the treaties. 

Democrats say Trump tariffs have damaged trade and harmed the economy. These treaties solve much of that problem, so what explains Congress’ lack of action? 

Is the act of denying Trump credit for the new agreements more important than the economic health of our country?

It’s September 2019. It’s also time for Congress and the president to devote some attention to the nation’s pressing problems of today.

Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter.