Power Line posted an article yesterday explaining why the START Treaty should not be passed during the lame-duck Congress.
The article points out:
"Matthew Spalding and Anna Leutheuser review the record since the passage in 1933 of the Twentieth Amendment limiting lame duck sessions. Spalding and Leutheuser write: "The State Department maintains a comprehensive listing of all agreements and treaties currently in force. While considerable research would be required to establish definitively that no treaty has ever been ratified by a lame duck session, it is of note that current research efforts have yet to find any such treaty."
"Spalding and Leutheuser therefore conclude: "The ratification of New START by a lame duck Senate would not only ignore the message sent by voters in November but also break a significant precedent, consistent with the principle of consent, maintained by Presidents and Congresses since the passage of the Twentieth Amendment in 1933."
"In short, what Obama et al. are doing is wrong. It is akin to the procedural shenanigans in which they engaged to ram Obamacare through the Senate after the election of Scott Brown earlier this year. Someone really ought to call them on it.
Aside from the obvious question of whether or not this Congress should ratify this treaty rather than leave it for the newly elected Congress, there is the issue of the treaty itself. Andrew McCarthy posted an articel at National Review Online yesterday detailing the problems with the treaty.
Mr. McCarthy concludes:
"Russia's strategic nukes will be reduced even if we do nothing, because Russia cannot keep up economically; the cap of 1,550 weapons works only against us. The impediment to modernization of our nuclear arsenal is not Russia; it is President Obama. He is demanding the bad New START agreement as his price for a modernization commitment that cannot be enforced. That's a net security loss. Better to elect a new president in two years for whom national defense is a priority."
I hope this Congress runs out of time before they get to approve this treaty. I will be an impediment to peace--not a help.
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