The First 100 Hours

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker wannabe, has finally announced something that sorta, kinda, looks like an agenda for the House under her leadership, but only the first 100 hours of that leadership:

Day One: Put new rules in place to "break the link between lobbyists and legislation."

Day Two: Enact all the recommendations made by the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Time remaining until 100 hours: Raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, maybe in one step. Cut the interest rate on student loans in half. Allow the government to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients.

Broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with federal funds — "I hope with a veto-proof majority," she added in an Associated Press interview Thursday.

All the days after that: "Pay as you go," meaning no increasing the deficit, whether the issue is middle class tax relief, health care or some other priority.

To do that, she said, Bush-era tax cuts would have to be rolled back for those above "a certain level." She mentioned annual incomes of $250,000 or $300,000 a year and higher, and said tax rates for those individuals might revert to those of the Clinton era. Details will have to be worked out, she emphasized.

"We believe in the marketplace," Pelosi said of Democrats, then drew a contrast with Republicans. "They have only rewarded wealth, not work."

"We must share the benefits of our wealth" beyond the privileged few, she added.

Notice the class warfare rhetoric? Rewarding "wealth, not work"? Dems act as though people with large incomes have simply sat back and let the bucks roll in while doing nothing in the form of work to earn it. That may be true of Teddy Kennedy, but it's not true of most high earners.

The 9/11 commission stuff is pure political noise. The Dems treat the 9/11 commission as though its report was written on stone tablets and handed down from a smoking mountain. There's no effort to examine the report carefully to see if every recommendation is really needed or valuable. That tells me they really have no clue as to what to do in the war on terror, but will grab onto a flawed report to make them look like they care.

And of course, this whole "plan" assumes a compliant Republican minority and a compliant Senate, not to mention a president who doesn't have a veto pen. It's naive at best.

UPDATE: The "first 100 hours" has become a floating target. Not 100 hours, but more like two weeks.

UPDATE2: Nancy Pelosi's magic clock.