The Hill is Alive With the Sound of Hearings

The investigative oversight we have seen so far, which has dominated the early stages of the 110th Congress, still has to be matched by more garden variety oversight of programs and the implementation of policies through normal authorization and appropriations processes. Over the past 15 years, Congress has gotten out of the habit of reauthorizing programs and agencies on a regular basis. And the appropriations process, usually the best source of good vigorous oversight, has turned in more recent times into a kind of bazaar for allocating earmarks. The real test for Congress is to make sure both of these core areas are reenergized and refocused. That would build on the promise of better performance that we have already seen, however imperfect, in the first hundred days of the new Congress.