Now that they have a Speaker, Congress needs to pick up the pace

Will it be real progress in Washington? It is hard to be optimistic. Yes, Congress finally elected a Speaker of the House. That means Congress can finally get back to governing, and just in the nick of time. It took nearly a month for Republicans to even determine who they wanted to lead them. They settled on their fifth choice. In the interim nothing was getting done. But it’s not like there isn’t much to do. In just a few short weeks, the U.S. government is poised to run out of money again, because when they allocated more money weeks ago, they only provided enough until the middle of November. Between now and then, the new Speaker will have to guide discussions on how to best operate government. Of course, there is the matter of wars raging in Israel and in Ukraine. President Biden has requested more money for both efforts. Now it is up to new speaker Mike Johnson to try to reach a deal. Both are important. We can’t let Putin win, and the United States continues to stand with Israel, it’s strongest partner in the Middle East, where an even wider conflict is feared. These are critical times. Let’s hope our new Speaker moves quickly because all the fumbling over selecting him has left very little time for getting down to business.