Slashdot Mirror
Senate Approves the ______Act Of____
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.
At this point, why don't they just write (or print) these things with dissappearing ink? It's not like they look at it again once it gets voted on.
"Wait, we aren't supposed to do this...isn't this against the law since we passed ::insert random bill::"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Living With a Nerd
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?
But they keep voting for them.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Bah! I can't wait for the zombie hordes to attack so we don't have to worry about stuff like this anymore...BRAAAINZZZZZ!!!!!
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.
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
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.
That this isn't one bill with a conspiracy theory behind it, but perhaps that that code is used more like a placeholder and constantly overwritten when a new unnamed bill comes along?
today is spelling optional day.
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.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Blame the thousands of lobbyists in Washington. They have many of the politicians in their pockets, both Republicans and Democrats. The lobbyists are their to protect the corporate exec's interests.
It could save a lot of time if they would just pass the executive branch a few blank legislations to be filled in later.
There isn't anything in the constitution prohibiting it, is there? Of course, you could not apply it ex post facto to dates before the blanks were filled in and so on.
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.
My plan to have Congress name me king and eternal diety has come to fruition and you're ruining it!
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
Seriously, guys. A clerk somewhere screwed up, and probably needs to be fired. However, it's a pretty far cry from martial law.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
The world is ending, someone made a clerical error!
But for a split second there I wax expecting the Python programming language to be mentioned somewhere in there.
All bills should be written on a wiki-like system that is publicly viewable, along with all previous versions of the bill and which member of Congress made which changes.
Technoli
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.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
I beg your pardon? The XXXXXXAct ofXXXX is obviously about porn! Look at all the XXX - they are obviously just very excited.
Short memory. The curse of the American people...
"I was just wondering what would happen!", cried the page as the men in black suits and mirrored sunglasses bundled him into the back of the black SUV.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
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.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Incompetent implies they don't know what they are doing. I'm sure that there is actually a very carefully wrought plan in action.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
The ______ Agenda
Intelligent folk should be above it. Both parties are broken, neither party aligns with your beliefs. Government isn't a sports game - the only real winners or losers are the people. The people of the US are giving up their independence and freedom to numbing mountains of laws and bureaucracy. They are ignorant of government spending and its resultant inflation and debt. The almighty dollar is the foundation we all stand upon and if you don't recognize the need for concern, you need to start paying attention to what our own accountants are saying - your Congressmen are not.
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...
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act”
~ George Orwell
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
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:
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.
Donate free food here
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 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.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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!).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
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.
Hell, I laughed out loud at that one. For those not in on the joke:
Peter Jennings is dead.
I can't speak for the original poster. But I disagree with pretty much everything you said so strongly that I couldn't resist putting in my $0.02.
If you accept that the massive influx of government spending is the proper response to a dead economy (I do),
I don't. Massive government spending turned a minor little recession into the Great Depression. It's never helped, and it never will. Central planning the Keynesians love so much has failed time and again.
If something doesn't work, the answer is not to do more of the same thing. Get the government out of the way and let the free market work. (And, no, we have not had anything vaguely resembling a free market since the Depression).
Nothing except a free market economy will ever be able to cope with black swans.
and that it is temporary (god I hope so),
Social Security was a "temporary emergency measure." And it will end, when the Ponzi scheme (which it is) collapses under its own weight. Government never voluntarily gives up any of its power. But go on hoping for change you can believe in.
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.
Actually, it got turned into a giant gimme to the insurance companies (who are crying all the way to the bank) and yet another giant bureaucracy that will destroy the quality of health care in this country. Along with tons of extra police-state tidbits like extra taxes on gold.
They passed a toothless wall-street reform act.
That's kind of the point. The people were screaming against the bailouts. The more we learned, the louder we screamed. So they passed this to placate us and promise "This will keep it from ever happening again." And people fell for it. Most Americans are still so brainwashed that they actually trust the "government" to protect them from the "evil corporations."
Regulations like that are just a security blanket. For all intents and purposes, those "evil corporations" have become "the government."
And saying this is as bad as Bush II is going too far. We're not stuck in any new intractable wars,
He's following Bush II's policies pretty much point for point. Along with his handling of accused "enemy combatants"...at least Bush II never sentenced an American citizen to death without any sort of trial. And the war machine's trying really hard to find an excuse to open up another front in Iran. Give it time.
we haven't lost all of our allies,
I suspect that's mainly because they're still buying into the belief that "absolutely anyone would have to be better than Bush" (which I thought, too, until I started to actually listen to what he was--and wasn't--actually saying.
He has managed to insult most of our allies and kiss most of our enemy's asses. Not quite as bad as Bush II, but I think he more than makes up for it elsewhere.
and we haven't had any new worldwide economic collapses.
Not really fair to blame that one totally on Bush (though he definitely deserves a share of the blame). The roots for this one go back to at least Carter's days. And we're pretty much still in the middle of it. (Throwing money at it makes it look like things are improving, but you have to fix the actual problems before you can expect them to go away).
Much as I despise Bush, this collapse is more the fault of the boom-bust cycle that's guaranteed by the Federal Reserve and government interference in the market (in this case, encouraging, and sometimes requiring, banks to take extra risks while promising to protect them when the risks backfire).
Mainstream economists are starting to admit that we're still in serious trouble, and won't be in the clear for a long time. I almost suspect they're finally coming around to the idea that the double-dip the Austrians are predicting just might be possible after all.
From Hermes: "Sweet something of someplace!"
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
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.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
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.
Uh... the Senate can absolutely propose legislation. They just aren't allowed to propose spending bills - that is entirely the realm of the House. Otherwise you're correct.
I was under the impression that monetary contraction is widely regarded as one of the factors that contributed to the Great Depression, and that Roosevelt's New Deal (which certainly increased government spending), as the Wikipedia article on the Great Depression so neatly puts it, "either caused or accelerated the recovery".
That's the general wisdom accepted by the mainstream economists who were telling us "don't worry, everything's fine!" right up until the world's economy collapsed.
The fed contracting the money supply (central control) was a huge mistake, and definitely a factor. But the main reason it was a problem was that shop keepers couldn't afford to immediately drop prices, and workers couldn't deal with the inevitable wage cuts. Not to mention that all those bank loans didn't magically deflate at the same time.
If you're really curious, check out Murray Rothbard. There's a link on that page to a PDF of _America's Great Depression_ (really, Slashdot? No <u> tags?). Mainstream economists don't have much respect for the Austrian school, but they're the ones who warned us what was coming. (Full Disclaimer: I haven't found the time to read it yet. It's just one on the subject that my friends keep telling me I absolutely must read Immediately...well, right after Hayek's _The Road to Serfdom_).
Many current economists are saying that the currently biggest threat we face, economically, is deflation.
Those are the mainstream economists again. The ones who are telling us heavy inflation (which they consider a good thing) isn't happening, when one of the biggest risks we're really running (according to the Austrians) is hyperinflation. The academic types who sit around on college campuses, pulling new formula out of thin air because, hey, that makes economics look like a hard science. The ones who don't suffer any real consequences when they inevitably blow it.
So it would seem to me that if there is anything we should do to control economic development at this point, it is actually increasing the amount of money in circulation,
As I understand it, we've pretty much doubled it in the past year. Admittedly, the different ways economists have of describing how much money's in circulation make my head spin.
and even printing more money is currently a viable way of doing that.
I think that probably depends on your definition of viable. From many points of view, that's pretty much the definition of "inflation."
The good news is that it looks like we will all soon know how different policies work out: as far as I can tell, current US policy is to keep stimulating the economy by pumping money into it, whereas many countries in the European Union are introducing budget cuts to reduce government debt. We'll see how these opposite policies effect their respective economies.
That really is the way to find out. Except that the EU's tied all their wagons together. Ours is the biggest one, leading the train. If any of us go off the cliff, we're pretty much all going.
Then again, economics really isn't a hard science (no matter what most economists try to pretend). So we should get analysts from all the different schools who'll look back after the dust settles and rationalize whatever happens in a way that "proves" they were right all along.
<shrug> (For anyone who's curious about other "alternative" economists who have a history of making correct predictions, check out Gary North. He's a bit of a religious nut, but he has an excellent track record).
Either this is a magnificent troll or someone's a complete jackass.
Why does it always have to be either/or with you people? "All the above" is a perfectly viable option too......
I think it's a little more involved than that. The Federal Reserve drops interest rates to get banks to borrow more. Theoretically, they're supposed to turn around and invest it in loans so they can earn more than it's costing them. Then the greedy businessmen get their nefarious hands on it (probably through doing something unscrupulous like building something people want to buy and then selling it to them) and it winds up getting invested in some hot new stock/commodity/whatever.
Speculators jump on that trend and drive the price artificially higher, until the bubble bursts and we start blowing up another.
The problem isn't really that greed's just part of human nature. It's that the central planners are manipulating the system by injecting more money (aka inflation) at an interest rate so low that people can't resist.
As a side note, we'd probably be in the middle of hyper-inflation right now if the banks were holding up their end of the bargain. They're borrowing like hot cakes at the current ridiculously low interest rates. But then they're just sitting on that cash (i.e. losing money). Most people seem to think that's to bolster their cash reserve for some unfathomable reason. I suspect it's some sort of shady way for the Fed to keep juggling its smoke and mirrors.
Booms and busts have probably always been with us (not that pretty much anyone has ever tried true free market capitalism, so who knows? It might be the silver bullet for them too). They've just gotten much worse since the Federal Reserve kicked in and the Keynsians got prominent.
But I wasn't talking about booms and busts. I was talking about Black Swan Events (wikipedia has a pretty good explanation). The basic idea is that the market is just too complex for central planners to deal with. Sooner or later, something they can't possibly foresee will come along and collapse their house of cards.
Gary North explains Black Swan Events much better than I can.