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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.
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
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!
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
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?
There's an easy fix for this. Make the following change to the Constitution:
Each year, before any new law can be created or any existing law modified, the Speaker of the House must first read aloud every last federal law on the books while all other members of Congress listen. If that takes more than one year (and the federal tax code alone would easily do so) then Congress is allowed only to repeal existing laws the following year. The next year after that, the reading aloud begins again and only if completed within one year can a new law be passed or an old law modified.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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".
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
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.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
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...
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.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
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