Slashdot Mirror
Democrats Take House, Senate Undecided
Every news publication on earth is saying mostly the same thing. The Democrats have taken the house picking up a sizable number of seats. But the Senate remains a tossup with a few undecided seats holding the balance. Concerns of voter fraud have been heard from around the nation as well.
You remember how you were going to send pro-war democrats a big message and kick Lieberman's sorry ass out of the senate?
Well, the way the senate results are coming down, guess what: you just made Independent Joe Lieberman the most powerful man in the Senate.
How do you like them apples?
With love,
-- Irony
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
The Republican majority has never understood or respected Congress. They literally believe that it should do as little as possible. That's what they came into power on in 1994. Immediately they cut oversight hearings in 1/2 (Yes, they only spent 1/2 as much time doing oversight of the Clinton administration as the Democratic Congress), and it has been on a downward trend to oblivion ever since. They spent 10x as much time investigating Clinton's Christmas Card mailing list as they did Abu Ghrab.
This is because Republicans have always viewed Congressional hearings as merely a club to attack the other party with when they are truly essential to a well running government. A lot of our problems would have been avoided if they had kept fulfilling that role, but they are phobic about saying anything bad about other Republicans. Let's just hope that there are enough old hands in Congress that can remember how this is supposed to work!
As an American, I can say that you're pretty much accurate there. The voting system has led to a two-party system, which has led to bitter, bitter partisanship like you describe - despite the fact that the Duopoly is essentially a single monster with two heads. Now that the election is over, it will return to being the back-patting good ol' boy club.
The OP is right - divided government is good. So then why can't we get some stronger third parties? I, for one, would love to see no single party with a majority in either house. A coalition government seems like it would be much slower to pass new laws as well, which is a good thing for freedom. Nobody in this country looks beyond the "us vs them" of election day to the deeper (though mundane) issues of voting methods that could actually fix the problem we all complain about. All my fellow Americans know how to do is swing the pendulum back and forth. The system itself doesn't allow (much less encourage) real challenge to occur. Voting doesn't make much difference, because there are no choices, so the USA has one of the lowest rates of involvement of any free country.
My analysis is that voters wanted a change. They rejected the leadership of GWB and took it out on Congress, but it isn't necessarily an endorsement of Democrats. I think there are a lot of disillusioned Republicans out there, that would have taken the opportunity to vote Constitution or Libertarian if the media had bothered to inform them of these alternatives. But the media seems to be in collusion with the Duopoly, because those bitter two-way feuds make good news.
Constitutionally Correct
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Can you explain how VA benefits to provide health care to veteran's injured in Iraq is not a military expense? If you use the figures from the offical U.S. Budget, you get 20%. However, the war on Iraq is not included in the budget and is funded through a special package. The funding has to be borrowed, and just like when I borrow money from the bank to buy something I cannot offered (like a house) I have to include the interest costs of borrowing this money in my accounting of its costs. Federal deficit costs that came from the wide variety of military actions we have been involved in since WWII, from Korea to Iraq to Nicaraqua (the first "War on Terror") to the funding we gave Hussien before he stopped following our orders. All of this costs money and should appropriately be assigned to military spending.
The flaw in your old saw is that you make the error of assuming the budget actually covers everything and that it properly categories expenses. All you have to do is think about how much is being spent in Iraq to get a sense that there is a serious flaw in your argument. Add in the money being spent on "Homeland Defense", Veterans Affairs, NASA, Department of Energy, that are primarily related to the military, and you have a lot more than 20%. Can you point out why you take the official numbers and cannot bring yourself to admit that there might be some bogus accounting going on here?