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.
We are blessed (Score:1, Insightful)
We are blessed with the most incompetent congress I can remember.
Bureaucracy (Score:3, Insightful)
When the system for legislation gets so confusing that not even the people passing the bills can keep it straight, I think it shows that there is some fundamental flaw in the system, or it didn't scale well or something.
Do we have to go back to Schoolhouse Rock?
No One Trusts Them (Score:4, Insightful)
Any objections? (Score:2, Insightful)
At this stage are there any objections to simply unseating every single encumbent? Certainly a large influx of "freshmen" to the halls of congress couldn't make matters any worse.
Thats what you get with interns (Score:3, Insightful)
More than likely an intern was getting the paperwork in, not trained, under paid, wanting to get out the to bar to meet the gang. Ah, government by the staff.
Is it possible (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:o rly? (Score:2, Insightful)
Disappearing ink is used for Ethic's rules.I heard it also is used with campaign promises and that check in the mail.
Congress has long been like this, they just haven't been so cavalier about it. When one party leads the Congress and the Presidency the American people will get the shaft. The real problem now is that instead of the press harping on every thing the Congress and Presidency did while under Republicans they have suddenly clammed up.
So the people are left with one choice, the ballot box. Hopefully most will make the choice to boot incumbents out. Because as we all know, Congress sucks but not my Congressman. This is the perception that allows these people to stay in power, that and writing laws making it near impossible for any challenge to Democratic or Republican parties
Blame the lobbyists... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:o rly? (Score:4, Insightful)
The real problem now is that instead of the press harping on every thing the Congress and Presidency did while under Republicans they have suddenly clammed up.
Well thank God Fox News is finally off the air... wait, what?
OMG (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Any objections? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know how every single incumbent is voting. I'm sure there are principled, effective congresspeople; voting all of them out would seem overly drastic.
Certainly a large influx of "freshmen" to the halls of congress couldn't make matters any worse.
Had something similar to that happen with the Republican revolution in the 90's. I seem to remember it making matter much worse.
Re:o rly? (Score:5, Insightful)
When one party leads the Congress and the Presidency the American people will get the shaft.
Agreed.
The real problem now is that instead of the press harping on every thing the Congress and Presidency did while under Republicans they have suddenly clammed up.
I guess that depends on what "press" you're listening to.
I was shocked and appalled at how much the Bush administration got away with. It didn't seem like anybody was holding them accountable. Sure, there was some noise about this or that... Primarily on the "liberal" channels like MSNBC... But nothing of any substance at all.
These days the "liberal" channels don't seem all that concerned about what Obama is doing. The "conservative" channels like Fox News, however, are plenty noisy. And you still get the occasional complaint out of someone on MSNBC that Obama isn't being "liberal" enough. But again it's still just noise with no substance at all.
Nobody is holding any of these folks accountable for their actions. It doesn't matter if there's a D or an R next to the name, they're all lying through their teeth and getting away with it.
Not even the usual campaign promise white lies either... Straight-up, stupidly blatant stuff like saying "I support this" on Monday, and then claiming on Tuesday that you never said you supported anything, even while the tape rolls on-screen. And nobody cares!
Re:We are blessed (Score:3, Insightful)
Short memory. The curse of the American people...
Very simple explanation (Score:5, Insightful)
It works very much like public schools. People will bemoan the fact that schools are not doing well, except the school their child attends.
The same logic is used when voting for the incumbent. Congress is awful, but not my Congressman.
We won't get these guys out until our political process is open to everyone fairly. As it stands now it is near impossible to get a non Democratic or non Republican elected. They can redistrict that possibility out. If they cannot do that way they will make your source of campaign funding illegal, or you method of distributing your message.
Re:Any objections? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like you need a refresher yourself. It wasn't about the question of federalism- that came later on. The Declaration was about a lack of self determination.
The problem with all these stupid calls to read the Declaration and Constitution is teabaggers seem to equate unelected tyranny with LOSING THE ELECTION BECAUSE THEY WERE THE FUCKING MINORITY.
Re:Is it possible (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bureaucracy (Score:5, Insightful)
What we need is a body of the Legislature whose sole job is to eliminate obsolete, obscure, and unclear laws.
Since their job would be the opposite of that of Congress, I suggest a name that is equally opposite.
"Pro" is the opposite of "Con".
Therefore, I suggest we call the new body "Progress".
Re:Any objections? (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair, I find Ron Paul an incredibly principled and honest politician, though if I don't want him near any position of real power in this country because I know he probably will follow through on his disastrous campaign promises.
Re:Any objections? (Score:3, Insightful)
Joe Leiberman votes his conscience as well.
And to be honest, pretty much all hard-line lefties and righties vote their principals also, it's just those principals are scary as shit.
It's the flip-floppers who disgust me, and I'm not talking about those who hold a position and then realize they've been wrong. I'm talking about those who vote in the direction of the political wind, or who seem to only stand up for their principals when it gets their name in the cable news spotlight for a few days.
Still, I'm so fed up with the government in general that I would vote for a "remove all" option if it were on the bill.
Re:o rly? (Score:5, Insightful)
And nobody cares!
Honestly, the best reporting on this type of stupidity is "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." It's a shame that a news program whose explicitly stated goal is humor is the only outlet reporting this stuff.
Re:o rly? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want a change by all means vote out your incumbent congress-critter. But please acknowledge you're not going to get a change with someone who has a D or and R next to his or her name. Try something different with an L or a G or even an I.
Re:A new way! (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this could set a new precedent of how things are done in Congress. A far more efficient way. Our reps and senators could get together to vote for an unnamed and unspecified bill. Various congressmen could stand up and speak to the issues that are most important to their constituency and party. Republicans can argue about how the bill is a hand-out sponsored by the democrats and that we all just need to have some personal responsibility. The democrats could argue about how this is required to protect the children/poor/minorities. Once all the grand standing is completed and the various pork riders attached, it will be voted on. Once approved it can then be forwarded to the various lobbyists to fill in the blanks. It would be something like a blank check but a more democratic version. The details never mattered anyways.
If only that was different than how they do things now. The depressing thing is that while I laughed through your post, I realized that your hypothetical anecdote is exactly the political status quo. Funny thing how we use laughter to cope with tragedy...
Re:Sorry, What?? (Score:5, Insightful)
the Democrats in the House, Senate, and White House have radically changed the landscape, and not for anyone's long-term benefit.
If you accept that the massive influx of government spending is the proper response to a dead economy (I do), and that it is temporary (god I hope so), what specifically are you referring to? The healthcare bill got watered down to the point where all it did was set up a competitive price exchange for healthcare... sort of the Amazon.com of getting sick. They changed student loans to be a bit more fair, and expanded Pell grants for needy students. They passed an act where if your landlord gets foreclosed upon but you have a lease, your lease survives. And if you don't have a lease, you have 3 months to find a new place. They passed a few credit-card acts counteracting some of the more egregious offences, and giving business owners some rights. They passed a toothless wall-street reform act.
What bills, specifically, are you referring to? I'm not asking facetiously. I know we tend to filter news through our own perceptions, and I wonder what I missed.
And saying this is as bad as Bush II is going too far. We're not stuck in any new intractable wars, we haven't lost all of our allies, and we haven't had any new worldwide economic collapses.
Re:Bureaucracy (Score:5, Insightful)
There already is such an institution: it's called Supreme Court.
Or maybe there isn't. It's hard to tell these days.
Partisan politics is immature bigotry. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Very simple explanation (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you assume adding a third party will improve things? Political systems get more retarded as the population increases, not as the number of parties decreases. In all honesty, when you consider the primary election system, you yanks have a lot more variation in opinion at election time than we do up in Canada. And after election, your Congress is like a herd of cats, everyone has their own opinion and turf to defend. Honestly, you have too much political choice and opinion, as far as I can tell. With so many options on the table, the public never pays attention to the little details. And the devil is in the details. The end result is your government's execution is terrible. Every district and every special interest gets their piece of the pie. So nothing ever really gets fixed, because someone's taking advantage of the flaw in the system, and they've got their own lobbying group.
The difference between the American Congress and the multi-party parliamentary systems you all seem to pine for isn't that we have more parties, it's that we have stronger party leadership. My government may not do what I want... or even a compromise. But at least it'll do it reasonably well, because our leaders don't have to appease their insane backbenchers.
Re:o rly? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd say it's a problem when your satirical news has more substance and information than the real news... But it's so damn funny.
Re:o rly? (Score:5, Insightful)
Humour is one of the safest ways to report the truth.
The comedians are the last ones to go before protest and news goes entirely underground.
Serious people aren't too hard to shut down. Those that appear unserious, are much harder. When they actually shut down the satire, your society is a few breaths away from actual insurrection.
Re:o rly? (Score:4, Insightful)
And nobody cares!
And there is the real problem.
It's hard to really blame the politician when the people just plain don't care or aren't interested enough to really find out what someone really stands for (if anything).
Not that I'll defend said politician, of course. Wrong behavior is wrong :)
Lately this phrase keeps coming to mind... (Score:5, Insightful)
“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act”
~ George Orwell
Re:Bureaucracy (Score:5, Insightful)
That's judicial activism, don't you know.
Re:You have to pass it to find out what's in it (Score:5, Insightful)
As Nancy Pelosi said of Obamacare "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." What she means is that nobody could learn what was in the bill by reading it.
Here's the full quote [speaker.gov]:
But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.
It seems more likely to me that she meant that all of the nonsense spouted by the extreme right (death panels and whatnot) made it impossible to have a reasonable discussion on what the bill was about. And that once it was passed all of that FUD would probably stop dominating the news so that the real information wouldn't be obscured anymore.
Re:Any objections? (Score:5, Insightful)
Republican voters, certainly. I'd think Dr. Paul's libertarian followers should have left shortly after the idiots hijacked his populist movement and turned it into the pointless anti-Obama mob it has become.
I don't think the current teabaggers are not embarrassed at all about Bush. These guys aren't moderates- they're the die-hards. They're the undoubting sheep who can't see any fault with Republicans past or present, no matter how Bachmann-esque. Sure- they don't yearn for Bush as much as they yearn for Regan, but I think that's a matter of charisma and nostalgia. They're content with the current wars, "trickle-down economics", and complete deregulation- all Bush policies. They love the idea of Palin running things, so how could they possibly believe 43 was the lousy president he was?
Re:Blame the lobbyists... (Score:4, Insightful)
The country is sick, and you want to blame the snot coming out your nose?
Lobbyists aren't the problem: they're a symptom.
Re:Bureaucracy (Score:3, Insightful)
There's already a "Progressive" political term and it is synonymous with exactly the opposite of what you propose. Current government progress seems to be about passing as many bills and laws as possible.
Congress and the Press Clash Incongruously (Score:2, Insightful)
Granted, one can always find individual cases that demand outrage, but overall, the reporting on Congress is more alarmist than accurate. Put 600 people in a room and ask them to make a decision. Any 600 people, any decision. If you'd like, you can just put the people designing C++ or HTML in a room and ask them to come up with a spec. Now give reporters full access to everything they say and do. If, in one week's time, reporters can't make everyone on that random committee look like an idiot, then they aren't trying.
The point is that Congress is not supposed to look pretty. It never has been pretty. It never has been noble. It has always, regardless of who is in power, been preoccupied with petty squabbles and produced absurd compromises. It is, as many have pointed out, the worst system imaginable -- except for all the rest.
The right is now having fun shooting ducks in a barrel by making fun of Congress, just as the left has had fun maligning Congress when the right was in power. All this is very entertaining, but it is shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how government works. All this attention from the press just makes congressman grand stand, and promotes the silliest and most disruptive sound bites without promoting anything useful. The problem is not so much Congress, but the way Congress and the press interact.
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What is the Community Reinvestment Act? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait a second, that link is for a Frank speech in 2003, from a hearing on an administration proposal to change the CRA. It says so in the first sentence!
So, in 2003, you are claiming that Bush objected to a Bush administration proposal?
Re:What is the Community Reinvestment Act? (Score:5, Insightful)
"What's funny is that the mortgage industry and derivative trading schemes that caused the implosion were mostly passed by a Republican congress and Democratic president... "
"The idea that Clinton somehow brought on the mortgage crisis by forcing banks to lend to poor people is simply ludicrous."
The financial crisis brought about by mortgage fraud and securities manipulation was brought on by the cumulative actions of several Administrations and Congresses. It is not a simple as CRA, but fundamentally goes back to repealing Glass-Steagell and the S&L scandals.
To try and pin it on one party or President is misguided, and misses the salient points; that our government permitted unsound and failing financial regulation to be enacted, that the financial industry saw th opportunity to profit from it without concern for their inevitable failure, and that much of that process was driven by a huge segment of the financial industry that sponsored or committed criminal fruad on several different levels, and has not yet faced judgment. Indeed, they played the gambit that we would bail them out, if the problem got too big, and we did.
Until we see many (thousands) of financiers, analysts, executives, brokers, and other agents do the perp walk, we are not done fully undestanding the cause and prevention of this sort of problem. CRA was just a part of this. Glass-Steagell was the precipitator of this chain of events. The S&L scandals predated and predicted this, and another attempt to do the same favor for the credit unions should be expected. The NCUA has so far been able to refuse the Congress' largesse.
A way to do it better? (Score:5, Insightful)
When the system for legislation gets so confusing that not even the people passing the bills can keep it straight, I think it shows that there is some fundamental flaw in the system, or it didn't scale well or something.
Do we have to go back to Schoolhouse Rock?
I've been looking at the constitutions of other countries, past and present, and ironically, I think the best solution to this was actually included in the Confederate constitution during the Civil War. They banned the practice of sneaking in pet projects on the back of a bigger ones:
"Every law, or resolution having the force of law, shall relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title."
Keeping legislation to one topic both simplifies the process and eliminates logrolling, at least outright. If we were to vote on a new round of amendments to the Constitution, this would be near the top of my list. I'm so tired of reading about a slew of pet projects on the back of a bill completely unrelated to the subject... things like grants for local agencies tucked into a defense bill.
Re:Bureaucracy (Score:2, Insightful)
This would never work, because as you pointed out, it's impractical from the start. A better approach would be to pass a constitutional amendment that provides for a mandatory sunset of laws. Ideally, you'd also require codification of all laws.
So the amendment would say something like, "1) All new laws passed by Congress must be codified into titles. 2) Each title (or existing uncodified law) shall automatically sunset and be removed from the official record of titles after __ years from the later of its original passage or last renewal. 3) For the purposes of this amendment, laws existing at the time of this amendment's ratification which were originally passed over __ years previous shall be considered to have been last renewed at a date within the last __ years, with the date randomly assigned by the ____ office."
Thus, you'd cause all existing laws to sunset slowly over the next __ years (for whatever value you fill in), and they'd have to be codified when they were renewed.
Then, if you want to help keep laws simple (which seems good in theory, but may just push the complexity to the executive branch's rulemaking process) and ensure there's been adequate time to read them before voting (which I support), you could pass another amendment (or add another section) that says, "Any law passed by Congress must have been read aloud in full by a representative or senator, as appropriate, or it shall be null and void." Obviously, the exact wording of these amendments might need some tweaking, but it seems more sustainable.
But then you still run in to the problems (Score:3, Insightful)
What do they collect it from and so on? While the tax might be fixed, with regards to the economy, the specifics would be highly fluid.
So Evil Fascist Republican A gets elected, puts his people in the IRS. He tells them "No taxing business at all, I want this all taken from income, and it has to be at a fixed rate." So the poorer people end up getting hit hard, they have a 20% tax, or whatever, same as everyone else. Businesses get hit with no taxes of any kind.
Then Loony Commie Democrat B gets elected and his people go in the IRS. He says "No taxes on the poor or middle class at all, everything has to be paid by the rich and business." So suddenly the rich's tax burden balloons to massive levels, 80% of their income gets taken. Businesses get hit with huge taxes they never had to pay in the past.
Because the only thing tax law specified was that you could collect not more than 20% (and of course the government would always collect the max) it means it is 100% up to the administrative law as to how that is done. That is of course determined by the agency responsible, and that agency is run by the executive branch.
So maybe you say "Ok, we need more checks in the law, to prevent that from happening, we'll specific more limits, more ways that taxes must be collected and so on." Good, but notice what you are now doing is making the law more complex.
Like I said, I'm not opposed to simplification of the law, but you have to be realistic about how simple it can be. The world is a complex place, you cannot expect an extremely simple set of laws to effectively govern it.
Re:o rly? (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason for this is that our country, during the course of the last 18 years or so, has been falling deeper and deeper into what I'll call a "strong presidency" structure.
Congress is nothing short of a glorified presidential sock puppet now. The House are a bunch of feckless weaklings and the Senate are a bunch of self serving check writers. They do his bidding. They might throw a few curve balls with confirmations, but overall, they serve at the leisure of the president. He says jump, and they do so with reckless abandon so long as the money keeps flowing.
If Congress doesn't fall in line, we call them obstructionists to progress. If SCOTUS steps out of bounds, we say they're legislating from the bench. People need to radically shift how they think about government and what role the president was supposed to have, as envisioned by our founding fathers. They didn't want a strong president, or even a strong federal government for that matter.
While this may seem impractical in light of our global military and financial dominance, it is to the detriment of our country that the federal government is so powerful. Sadly, the average citizen doesn't understand enough about government structure to even understand that a charismatic leader isn't good for us. We need a highly intelligent ho-hum leader and we need a senate with balls to make the country better.
Re:Any objections? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're pegging the value of the currency to something that has little connection to the economy as a whole; should the value of people's savings be based on how much shiny metal someone else managed to find in the earth this month?
can't be printed so they would end all the keynesian nonsense that ruled supreme for the last 100 years
You mean the 100 years which saw the greatest number of people lifted out of poverty and hand-to-mouth existence in human history?
And for all the complaining about the Fed supposedly causing the bubble and it's bursting, what caused all the depressions before the Fed was created? Ron Paul is ignorant of economic history, like most libertarians.
Re:Any objections? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Partisan politics is immature bigotry. (Score:2, Insightful)
The Tea Party is about ending the ridiculous spending and waste in Government.
So where were you assclowns when Bush was writing the book on government overreach? As another commenter points out, it took the election of a (half)-black President to make the teabaggers sit up and pay attention.
You people don't really give a crap about your country, or you'd have been screaming bloody murder during the Bush administration. "Conservatism?" Phooey... it's just another of your Protestant sacraments, to be paraded in front of your neighbors for appearance's sake.