Sen. Michael Bennet thinks we should wait around for a future committee to re-open the economy. Thanks, but no thanks.

Bennet and a few colleagues, all Democrats, plan to introduce a bill that would turn over coronavirus decisions to a 15-member committee appointed by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. The committee would wrest responsibility from President Donald Trump, whom Americans lawfully elected to make executive decisions for the country in good times and bad. Bennet would waste time on this, knowing Trump would veto any such bill.

Bennet wants us to wait on legislation that would someday create a committee, even though people are losing jobs by the hour and falling into poverty. Businesses are closing.

Governments and charities are running out of money to save us because closed businesses and laid-off workers don’t pay taxes. It is a crisis in which hours count, not one that can wait on another all-for-show Senate debate about how to form a committee.

No one should be surprised by Bennet’s Washington-way committee idea. It is the standard approach to bogging progress. The senator has been Mr. Too Little Too Late throughout the pandemic. He should take a few pointers from Colorado’s Sen. Cory Gardner and just get busy.

Gardner and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, were the only members of the Senate who sounded the alarm about COVID-19 when we had a fighting chance to keep it at bay. Meanwhile, Bennet and his colleagues grandstanded a futile effort to remove Trump from office.

When that did not work, Bennet yelled on the Senate floor and excoriated the entire Senate chamber.

“We have become a body that does nothing. We’re an employment agency. That’s what we are…” Bennet said in January, summarizing the Senate’s performance as “pitiful,” “disgraceful,” and “pathetic.”

He is right about that. If the entity were not so pitiful, we would have seen more than a handful of members show up for the hearing Gardner demanded to obtain information about COVID-19. We would have seen others join Gardner and Cotton in trying to get early action on the coronavirus threat.

If the Senate is “pathetic,” as Bennet contends, he might look at his own performance.

During the time Gardner has consistently made deals with businesses and foreign allies for masks, respirators, and more, Bennet has issued statements trying to raise a perception of pandemic relevance. He wants legislation protecting our privacy on Zoom, even though any company in that competitive space has every incentive to improve security.

Bennet complained April 10 about Trump temporarily suspending asylum and refugee resettlement for foreigners, even as his constituents are required to stay in their homes to avoid spreading the disease. Now, he wants a future committee to resolve problems that cannot wait on “a body that does nothing.”

Imagine if Gardner wanted a committee to solve coronavirus problems. If that were his style, he would not make phone calls domestically and overseas to achieve immediate results for people who don’t have time to wait on a committee of the future. He would not send staffers to buy and deliver supplies for constituents stranded at home.

While Bennet admonishes his peers for doing “nothing,” he should take an honest look in the mirror.

A report released Feb. 26 by the non-partisan legislative tracking organization GovTrak gave Bennet what can only be called a failing report card for 2019. Here are the highlights:

? Bennet scored the lowest among all senators for advancing legislation out of committees

? Bennet ranked among the lowest 10 Senate Democrats for introducing bills

? Bennet co-sponsored bipartisan legislation only one-third of the time

? Bennet ranked as the seventh-most absent for voting among all senators, Republican and Democrat

By stark contrast, GovTrak reports Gardner authored 50 bipartisan bills in 2019.

That makes him second-highest bipartisan bill sponsor in the entire Senate. He ranks among the highest in the Senate for moving bills out of committee and reaching across the aisle to achieve results.

More than ever in their lives, Americans need leadership. They need people who issue travel bans while opponents call them “racist” and “xenophobic” for doing so. They need senators who tell us early on we should not trust China and the World Health Organization – which each insisted through January we had little to worry about.

We need leaders who make deals for supplies, challenge conventional wisdom, make decisions, and deliver what can help Colorado and the rest of the country survive a deadly epidemic. We don’t have time for a “does nothing” Senate to form another committee sometime in the future.

That would be pathetic.