The legacy of the first Do Nothing Congress

The liberal cable media and the left-wing main stream media are referring to the current Congress as the Do Nothing Congress.

The Tea Party conservatives have succeed in stopping the runaway spending by the Obama-Pelosi-Reed Spend-a-crats. Yet much still must be done to bring the economy back.

But where did this term Do Nothing Congress originate?

It was first used by Democrat President Harry S Truman in describing the 80^th Congress. It worked to gain his re-election, too.

Here’s what happened.

In 1946, the spending by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Second World War left the United States strapped with huge debts. In fact, debt was 100 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) just as it is now.

Republicans swept into power in the elections of 1946 and controlled both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The GOP immediately set about reversing the laws passed during the New Deal and Truman’s Fair Deal.

Here is a list of legislation that came out of the Do Nothing Congress:

1. Approved assistance to Greece and Turkey. They were being threatened by communists from within and the Soviet Union from without
2. Passed the Taft-Hartley Act that monitors the activities of organized labor and assures workers the right to not be forced into unions. Truman vetoed the Taft-Hartley Act, but the "Do Nothing Congress" overrode his veto.(read more...)
3. Passed the National Security Act that created the Air Force, the CIA and re-aligned American’s intelligence network to counter Soviet espionage. (read more ...)
4. Minerals Leasing Act (read more ...)
5. U.S. Information Exchange Act which set up the Voice of America radio stations. (read more ...)
6. Here’s the big one … the Marshall Plan for assistance for Western Europe which was near collapse and was being threatened from within and without by the Soviet Union (read more ...)
7. Peacetime draft
8. Greek-Turkish Assistance Act.
9. Civil Air Patrol
10. Presidential Succession Act that names the Speaker of the House to be vice president when there is no VP.
11. Federal Water Pollution Control Act.
12. War Claims Act that liquidated German and Japanese assets and paid claims to American prisoners of war and detainees.
13. Agricultural Act of 1948. (Read more ...)

Above all, the “Do Nothing Congress” proposed the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution which limited the President to two consecutive terms in office. This amend was ratified in 1951. (read more …)

All these measures were signed into law by Harry Truman, who named the congress the Do Nothing Congress.

“The 80th Congress was nicknamed the "Do Nothing Congress" by President Harry Truman. The Congress opposed many of the bills passed during the Franklin Roosevelt administration. They also opposed most of Truman's Fair Deal bills. Yet they passed many pro-business bills. During the 1948 election Truman campaigned as much against the "Do Nothing Congress" as against his formal opponent, Thomas Dewey,” according to Wikipedia.com. (bold face added)

The Do Nothing Congress also took over the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigated communist influence in Hollywood and elsewhere. Truman denounced the HUAC, but documents seized after the fall of the Soviet Union revealed that some of Truman's and Roosevelt's top advisors were indeed working for the KGB.

Truman also played the race card. (read more ...)

Now President Barack Hussein Obama has revived the strategy that worked for Truman in 1948.

Will it work in 2012?  We will see.