Look inward, House GOP

It was temper tantrum time again in the U.S. House of Representatives. On March 3, 167 conservative Republicans voted to cut off funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, effective at midnight.

They were angry that the funding bill no longer included a provision that would block President Obama’s executive action on immigration.

So what that they were putting our country at risk even if, only days earlier, an al Qaida-linked terrorist group had threatened to place suicide bombers in the Mall of America and other public venues. Republicans wanted their way. We’re lucky that in the end, they didn’t get it.

The conservatives’ core issue involved President Obama’s use of executive orders. Obama has signed 194 of them in six years. (George W. Bush issued 291 in two terms, and Reagan, 381.) When House Speaker John Boehner refused for a year and a half to allow a vote on the Senate’s huge bipartisan immigration bill, the president acted.

Outraged conservatives might consider amending the Constitution: “The President of the United States shall be prepared to wait until hell freezes over for the House of Representatives to pass urgently needed legislation.”

Dody Dozier

Moscow