Ireland's Modest Proposal

The U.S. Congress "enjoys" an 83 percent disapproval rating, which puts that august body in Osama bin Laden ranking territory.

Repealing ObamaCare (38 times and counting) is about the only thing Congress is good at these days.

Republican leadership is now fine-tuning that strategy with a move to "defund" the Affordable Care Act. There is a sense of urgency in that effort. GOP leadership wants to strangle ObamaCare before its main provisions begin to take hold in 2014 to benefit uninsured and underinsured Americans. Customer satisfaction with ObamaCare will rob the GOP of its reason for being.

Meanwhile, the good people of Ireland go to the polls Oct 4. to vote on whether to disband the country's 60-member Senate, which is dismissed as a "talking shop" that reviews the laws passed by Ireland's Dail, the 166-member lower chamber.

Irish president Edna Kenny is the driving force in the campaign to junk the Senate. He feels that body contributes zip to the political life of the country and is a financial burden on the economy.

William Butler Yeats is the last notable to emerge from the Senate. Obviously, Nobel laureate Yeats is best remembered for his poetry. He retired from the Senate in 1928.

Who was the last notable to emerge from the U.S. House of Representatives? Newt Gingrich? Anthony Weiner? It’s been a long dry spell since Abraham Lincoln.

Republicans boast of their position as small government advocates, forever on the look out for ways to slash waste.

Think of the millions U.S. taxpayers would save if House votes itself out of office. After closing its Senate, Ireland will save more than $25M a year. That's peanuts compared to what Americans would save once Congress is shut down. My bet is that few American will miss John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi and the gang.