With Apologies to Dickens, One was the Best of Senators, One was the Worst of Senators.

The title of this post doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” But what can you expect when you compare politicians to the opening line of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.

That’s what came to my mind, though, when I noticed two stories next to each other on the Washington Post website. The first story was about a new lawmaker, infused with the spirit of the Tea Party, seeking to shrink the size and scope of Washington. The other story was about a career politician trying to expand the power of the federal government.

Let’s start with the good news. Here’s an excerpt from the Washington Post report about Senator Rand Paul’s bold plan to reduce the burden of government spending, including an attack on one of Washington’s sacred cows – subsidies for Israel.

The freshman Kentucky lawmaker unveiled his budget proposal this week that would make significant cuts in education, housing and energy while reducing money for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq by $16 billion. Paul’s plan also would cut some $20 billion in overseas aid, and he said he wants to eliminate the $3 billion the United States provides to Israel annually in foreign military assistance. “The overwhelming majority of Americans agree with Senator Paul – our current fiscal crisis makes it impossible to continue the spending policies of the past,” Paul spokesman Gary Howard said in a statement responding to the criticism. “We simply cannot afford to give money away, even to our allies, with so much debt mounting on a daily basis.” The latest economic forecast puts the deficit at a record $1.5 trillion. Paul explained his position in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, saying he respects Israel as a Democratic nation but feared funding an arms race in the Mideast.

Now, for the business-as-usual story, we have a story about the latest antics of Senator Charles Schumer, who has discovered a new “crisis” that requires action by Washington. Here’s a blurb from the Washington post.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York says he wants the federal government to ban new designer drugs known as bath salts that pack as much punch as cocaine or methamphetamines. The small, inexpensive packets of powder are meant to be snorted for a hallucination-inducing high, but they are often marketed with a wink on the Internet or in convenience stores as bathing salts. The Democratic senator is announcing a bill Sunday that would add those chemicals to the list of federally controlled substances. …Schumer says the bath salts “contain ingredients that are nothing more than legally sanctioned narcotics.”

I confess total ignorance about “narcotic” bath salts, but even in the unlikely case that they should be banned, that is a decision for state governments. Last time I checked, the enumerated powers of Congress did not include authority to tell us what we can put in our baths or up our noses.