This is what staffers are for. Split the bill up among all the GOP Senators, Representatives, and their staffs, and you could make quick work of it.

You’d think the GOP would jump at the opportunity to do this, to find politically useful material. Why didn’t they?

Go back and watch your Schoolhouse Rock.

I was during the conference committee sessions to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the bill that Pelosi and the Dems locked out the Republicans. That’s also when the final version of the bill was marked up, including all sorts of add-ons that weren’t in either the House or Senate versions of the original bill.

It’s that bill that was then passed on to both houses for a quick vote, where members were given only 11 hours to sift through 1,400 pages to see what had been added, subtracted, or amended.

Right, and in your simple minded world the Dems sit in a dimly lit room drafting legislation that will bring and end to civilization as we know it. Sorry, they made no secret that they wanted to include the repubs in the process. Fuck, Obama was practically begging them for their input. If they didn’t participate in the process then it’s their own fucking fault that they don’t know what changes have been made.

Seems like any good President should adopt such a policy. Why is it so impossible to get people elected who will actually do their (bleep)ing job!?

http://www.lawsonforcongress.com/issues/good-government/

Time for Change

When people ask why I’m running for Congress, I start with a summary of my four primary concerns about our federal government, and Congress in particular:

1. Most people assume that our elected Representatives and their staff actually read the bills before they vote on them. They don’t.
2. Many people assume that our lawmakers limit legislation to a single topic at a time. They don’t do that, either.
3. Most people assume that our elected Representatives actually write legislation. Increasingly, they don’t.
4. Finally, many people assume that Congress follows rules concerning what our federal government should, and shouldn’t, do. Not any more.

Our process of government is broken. The current process obscures accountability, serves only special interests, and is a disservice to the American people. I believe it’s time for a new generation of principled leadership, and I want to pass the following four bills to correct the legislative process and return control to the people:

1. The Read the Bills Act: Congress should read legislation before it votes on it.
2. The One Subject at a Time Act: Congress should limit legislation to one subject per bill.
3. The Write the Laws Act: Congress should write laws and be accountable for their results, and not delegate rulemaking authority to unelected bureaucrats and corporate lobbyists.
4. The Enumerated Powers Act: All legislation must specify the Constitutional authority upon which it is based.

“Don’t you think they get a summary of the changes?”

Right, and a politicians would never write a misleading summary for their own benefit, right? Omit damning details? No, never, never.

What do you think was proposed? Don’t you think they get a summery of the changes?

Theatrics plain and simple.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvnwOjDjnH4

If they haven’t read one page of that by now they should be voted out of office.

Esepecially b/c legislators put in the worst pork at the last possible minute precisely to avoid multiple days of press scrutiny.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.1:

http://appropriations.house.gov/

I have no idea who is holding the marionette wires of our nation, mind you, but I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that they are connected with Goldman Sax. No better king than a secret one, for that is one that can never, ever be overthrown.

Either Obama is still settling in (his cabinet appointments haven’t gone off too good), or he is a lot weaker of a leader than most expected, or Rahm isn’t doing his job.

On the other hand, perhaps Obama is letting the Congressional Dems get this all out of their system (They’ve been out of power since 1995) before he makes them buckle down and behave in a reasonable manner.

Or its the meet the new boss same as the old boss thing again.

Someone once said that political comedy was the easiest job in the world because all you had to do was report the facts. Politics is strange than fiction. UCMTSU.

As they say, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

I’m not trying to defend Obama here; just direct the contempt towards the promise itself, rather than the failure to deliver. If Obama promises that tomorrow will be a sunny day, we shouldn’t applaud him today and then get angry when it rains tomorrow.

Torches and pitchforks (metaphorically speaking) might change the fundamental way Congress works, but electing a new president won’t.

All that said, the fundamental debate behind the stimulus package – between the Keynesian contention that any spending is stimulus and thus all that matters is that the bill be as big as possible, and its detractors – had more than 5 days to percolate through the blogosphere, and as far as I can tell liberals are still liberals and conservatives are still conservatives. I think it’s overly optimistic to think that a 5 day waiting period would have much effect on Congresscritters. Corruption in Congress is like that old saying about information on the internet; it interprets reform as damage and routes around it.