Senate Approves the ______Act Of____ 571
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently the Senate was in such a rush to get out of town that it forgot to name an 'important' bill that it passed, so the bill goes to the House as The ______Act of____. That's how it appears in the Congressional Record, though the Library of Congress has it listed as The XXXXXXAct ofXXXX. As for what's in the bill, well that appears to be as mysterious as the name. It was officially announced as a bill to tax bonuses to execs who received TARP money. But then someone simply deleted the entire bill and replaced it with text about aviation security. And then it was deleted again, and replaced with something having to do with education. However, because of these constant changes, many of the services that track the bill have the old details listed. On top of that, Nancy Pelosi called the House back for an emergency vote on this unnamed bill, and anyone trying to find out what it's about might be misled into thinking its about aviation security or something entirely unrelated to the actual bill. And people wonder why no one trusts Congress." It appears that the government's new martial law plans are being passed after all.
Well (Score:5, Informative)
If you actually read the bill you'll realize that it contains $100 billion for spending on "education", clauses to let States governments go suck at the TARP nipple (shocking huh? Whatever happened to green jobs, etc that were promised?), new taxes for foreigners doing business in the US, foreign companies doing business in the US, and US citizens previously entitled to tax credits from living abroad, and well over $1 trillion worth of rescinded spending (presumably to get money to give to the State governments). There are other details, obviously.
Tax bills can't originate in the Senate (Score:5, Informative)
If it is a bill to tax executive bonuses from TARP-receiving companies, then the Constitution says that it must originate in the House, not the Senate, but I suppose that detail is ignored.
Get a grip (Score:3, Informative)
Seriously, guys. A clerk somewhere screwed up, and probably needs to be fired. However, it's a pretty far cry from martial law.
Re:Not a bad idea in general (Score:4, Informative)
you jest, but that's essentially what congress has been doing for a long time. The health care bill essentially said "all these things will happen by this date" without detailing how they would happen. All of the details were handed over to HHS to work out on their own. Basically it was so vague (deliberately so) that the real effects won't be known until after HHS finishes figuring out how to implement it.
Re:Tax bills can't originate in the Senate (Score:2, Informative)
True, but the Senate, long ago, figured a way around that. Just take some house bill that is going nowhere, offer an ammendment that replaces the entire text, and bingo, you're there.
Re:Not a bad idea in general (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Any objections? (Score:2, Informative)
what disastrous promises are you talking about? care to elaborate?
bringing troops home, paying attention to a supposedly outdated idea of fiscal responsibility, going back to the principles of the US constitution are considered disastrous nowadays?
Re:Any objections? (Score:5, Informative)
Let me fix a completely wrong summary. (Score:5, Informative)
You'd think there might be a political agenda.
Luckily this is old news and information is already out there.
Yes there appeared to be a last minute decision to replace the text of HR. 1586 with the contents of what will eventually become known as the "State Bailout Bill". Apparently there was a need to replace the contents of the "FAA Modernization Bill" with this emergency spending bill. Possibly the senators figured out that the fastest way to get this to the President's desk was to amend the last house passed bill to replace its contents, and then have the house reconvene to approve the change. No big conspiracy here, but some comical fodder about forgetting to put the final name of the bill into the text.
No one did such thing, That's amendment S.AMDT.3486 to HR. 1586 Sponsor: Sen Schumer, Charles E. [NY] (introduced 3/11/2010)
See my explanation above, and this was not "deleted again". By the way the amendment is S.AMDT.4575 to HR. 1586 Sponsor: Sen Murray, Patty [WA] (submitted 8/2/2010) (proposed 8/2/2010)
With the summary so full of political hyperbole, I can see why the submitter remained anonymous. The fact that the article actually provides the PDF of the congressional record proves that the submitter is completely wrong with his assertions.
This supposed conspiracy doesn't rise to the level of the shenanigans that the Republicans performed when they passed the "Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999" that Clinton signed into law. It was that bill ultimately got us in the sad shape we are in now...
What is the Community Reinvestment Act? (Score:5, Informative)
Clinton called for making mortgages more readily available, and signed what, exactly? Let's at least be honest about what Clinton's changes to the Community Reinvestment Act [wikipedia.org] actually did. From the wiki page:
In July 1993, President Bill Clinton asked regulators to reform the CRA in order to make examinations more consistent, clarify performance standards, and reduce cost and compliance burden.[55] Robert Rubin, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, under President Clinton, explained that this was in line with President Clinton's strategy to "deal with the problems of the inner city and distressed rural communities". Discussing the reasons for the Clinton administration's proposal to strengthen the CRA and further reduce red-lining, Lloyd Bentsen, Secretary of the Treasury at that time, affirmed his belief that availability of credit should not depend on where a person lives, "The only thing that ought to matter on a loan application is whether or not you can pay it back, not where you live." Bentsen said that the proposed changes would "make it easier for lenders to show how they're complying with the Community Reinvestment Act", and "cut back a lot of the paperwork and the cost on small business loans".[36]
By early 1995, the proposed CRA regulations were substantially revised to address criticisms that the regulations, and the agencies' implementation of them through the examination process to date, were too process-oriented, burdensome, and not sufficiently focused on actual results.[56] The CRA examination process itself was reformed to incorporate the pending changes.[40] Information about banking institutions' CRA ratings was made available via web page for public review as well.[36] The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) also moved to revise its regulation structure allowing lenders subject to the CRA to claim community development loan credits for loans made to help finance the environmental cleanup or redevelopment of industrial sites when it was part of an effort to revitalize the low- and moderate-income community where the site was located.[57]
It should be noted that compliance with the CRA is entirely voluntary, if you don't want the tasty government tax credits, don't comply. The idea that Clinton somehow brought on the mortgage crisis by forcing banks to lend to poor people is simply ludicrous.
Re:Sorry, What?? (Score:3, Informative)
The "peace and prosperity" of the 1990s was not the result of anything Clinton did. In fact, the assertions are actually false.
It wasn't unprecedentedly peaceful. During Clinton's term (not even the full 1990s), there were more military actions than there were from 2000-2010. If you're going by number of sanctioned actions, the 1930s were the most peaceful (only three - related - actions, in China).
From the start of Clinton's presidency in 1993 - right off the fucking bat - he starts throwing stones at the Balkans (making matters worse, as UN actions usually do). That's a collossal fuck-up, yet nobody even talks about it or acknowledges it as one - despite the troubles still going on today. Then there's Sudan, Liberia, repeated bombings in Iraq, Somolia actions (fail!), air strikes in Afghanistan, and of course repeat Balkan bombings. And of course there were the heightened War on Drugs efforts, and the "unprecedented" use of federal police for domestic military action against US citizens (Waco, Ruby Ridge).
This, despite the cease of conflict between Soviet states/interests and the West - ie, the Cold War being over. Granted, most of these were punitive actions so he could "look tough" and had little actual impact (aside from the Balkans). If there was peace, it was because threats were being ignored (such as, oh, Osama's buddy trying to assassinate Clinton in the Philipines). Calling it "unprecedented peace" is a pile of shit so deep you could call it a hill.
The economic prosperity, on the other hand, really did happen, but it was akin to not paying your power bill to buy a new TV. He did some things with regard to employment, but he was incredibly fortunate to arrive on the scene when he did: before the 2nd wave of substantial off-shoring occurred, and at the cusp of the so-called Information Revolution. Between opening up the national oil reserves (cheap oil/gas), increased off-shoring, and the explosion of the tech industry, he'd have had to try pretty hard to make things not grow like wild fire. (Likewise, the 1997-2000 bubble, and it's ultimate collapse around 2002, can be safely attributed to the same dotcom bubble).
I should note I'm not justifying any of the crap since or before Clinton, but calling Clinton a saint of a President is a bit shortsighted (to say the least!).
Re:Hmm... (Score:2, Informative)
Peter Jennings [wikipedia.org] is dead.
Re:What is the Community Reinvestment Act? (Score:4, Informative)
The idea that Clinton somehow brought on the mortgage crisis by forcing banks to lend to poor people is simply ludicrous.
It's amazing how Republicans keep spouting that completely ignoring that Clinton neither suggested nor mandated ANY of the lending practices that lead to the collapse. Had the banks done what Clinton wanted and made it a bit easier for less well off people to buy a STARTER HOME (not a McMansion) at a decent rate, there would never have been a problem. Nowhere did Clinton mandate the outrageous balloon payments or the big lies mortgage brokers told financially naive people. Nothing in his guidelines required doing any of those scummy things in order to comply (with a voluntary program).
All of that crap happened primarily on Bush's watch and he did nothing about it until it blew up. Then he handed the banks a big wad of cash as a reward for their corruption.
It's a good thing for Clinton that Obama won, otherwise he'd still be getting the blame for current events on through the mid 21st century.
Re:What is the Community Reinvestment Act? (Score:3, Informative)
The CRA did not force any banks to make dodgy loans. It simply asked banks to be colour blind when evaluating loan applications.
The whole mortgage melt down was caused by greed, lying to applicants to get them to take on mortgages they could not afford, then repackaging these bad mortgages as financial instruments that the raters (moodys etc..) rated triple A when they were junk and reselling them thus taking the risk away from the banks that made the bad loans. A lack of regulation allowed investment firms and banks to be woefully under capitalized which meant when the bubble burst they did not have enough cash on hand to survive the downturn.
When things are booming everyone laughs at the stodgy Canadian banks that play by the rules, are much more regulated than USA banks, and are generally pretty conservative. When the bubble bursts Canadian banks look like geniuses.
Re:Congressional Procedure (Score:2, Informative)
Senate rewriting of House bills not controversial (Score:1, Informative)
While the name of the bill is actually funny, haha, the rest of the submission makes a big deal out of nothing.
According to the Constitution only the House can originate a bill of revenue [1 [wikimedia.org]]
In order to comply with this clause, the Senate typically takes a revenue-raising bill that has already been passed in the House of Representatives and amends it (or replaces it entirely) with its own bill. [2 [senate.gov]]
For instance, TARP (Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008), was originally passed by the House as the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act. [3 [loc.gov]]
Re:o rly? (Score:1, Informative)
All due respect - and there's not much - that's bullshit. Watch MSNBC for yourself and see how easy they go on the Obama administration. They don't. Rachel Maddow is the most liberal of their lineup and she will absolutely call the Obama administration on their misbehavior.
This false equivalency bullshit has got to stop.