The 112th Congress will convene in a few days and should begin by making a number of reforms to enhance its efficiency, accountability, and the overall quality of legislation it produces.  House Republicans are making a good start by promising to reduce the number of legislative days and having a public reading of the U.S. Constitution to impart to members the critical importance of their legislation actually adhering to constitutionally enumerated rhetoric.  Hopefully, the proposal that all bills cite specific U.S. constitutional authority in their text is implemented right away.

Congress should move to two-year budget cycle to facilitate longer-term fiscal planning and its highest budget priority, aside from moving to substantially cut spending and reduce the budget deficit, should be ensuring the 13 agency spending bills which make up the federal budget actually get passed by October 1, 2011 which is the start of the federal fiscal year.  A sign of the unlamented 111th Congress' incompetence, was its failure to pass FY 2011 legislation on time despite overwhelming Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.  Congress' should also drastically reduce the volume of legislation it passes and emphasize quality legislation which improves our economy, creates lasting jobs, lowers  national debt, enhances national security, and gives individual Americans the freedom to make the decisions that are best for them and their families.

The 111th Congress passed 290 public laws and many of them deal with absolutely irrelevant material to the daily lives of Americans such as naming post offices after various local figures and minting coins for five star generals.  Congress should limit its substantive legislative output to 20-25 laws beyond the 13 agency appropriations bills.  These individual laws should be no longer than 500 pages and written in plain English to give members of Congress the time to read and study them before voting on them.  All legislation should be posted online within three days of the vote in order to give the public the opportunity to comment on the merits or demerits of such legislation.  Congress should quit wasting time honoring favored individual or group constituents through resolutions and Congressional Record speeches.  Instead it should spend the majority of its time conducting oversight of federal programs, debating the performance of these programs, and making cuts where needed.  It needs to tackle the entitlement crisis and Republicans need to be willing to look at "sacred cows" such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security which are major causes of our fiscal problems and make excisions and promote enhanced efficiencies as needed regardless of the squealing social welfare lobbyists will engage in.  Earmark reform is also essential although earmarks do not make up as much of the federal budget as some critics maintain. Nevertheless, they are a problem that needs to be rectified.

This will require partisan discipline and principled policymaking which provides conservatives with the opportunity to demonstrate genuine commitment to the core conservative principle of fiscal rectitude and distinguish ourselves from liberal profligacy and ideologically vapid organizations like the "No Labels" movement which mistakenly thinks you can remove political classification from political discourse and policymaking.  Finally, Congress will have to be especially vigilant to thwart regulations the Obama Administration may seek to impose which it cannot achieve through legislation due to changed congressional electoral demographics.  In particular, rigorous scrutiny will need to be paid to thwarting attempts to implement Obama Care and to EPA attempts to impose cap and trade on multiple sectors of the American economy and U.S. consumers which would produce ruinous cost increases at a time of acute economic frailty.

The next Congress should also look at repealing laws which are no longer needed and spend time repealing or reducing the impact of bad laws such as Obamacare, the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and portions of the misnamed Financial Services Reform Act.  Judiciary Committees in both the House and Senate need to regularly look at overturning bad court rulings such as the 9th Circuit District Court ruling in San Francisco overturning California voters passage of Proposition 8 in 2008.  Congress also needs to close down unneeded federal agencies such as USDA's Federal Utilities Service which was created in the 1930's to electrify farms, remove duplicative job training programs, and close redundant agency facilities within departments such as NASA, DOE, and other agencies.  Inserting agency sunset provisions into appropriations legislation should also occur in order to prevent the perpetuation of government agencies who have passed their "use by date" and the political constituencies desirous of perpetuating these agencies and their programs.