Revealed - why Congress is not doing much (good)Extremists outnumber Moderates
Result: laws loaded with earmarks & lobbyist-serving line items
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(2008 Nov blog post)
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In response to the U.S. economic 'meltdown' that surfaced in no uncertain terms in mid-September 2008, via a $700 billion goverment 'bailout/rescue', I fired off a set of Letters to the Editor of a local newspaper.
The newspaper was being deluged with letters, so it was almost impossible to get a letter published. A letter to this newspaper has a very limited potential audience anyway, and a letter published in the newspaper is not readily available for reference --- and has a very short life on their website. So I post my letters in this blog.
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TO: letters@dailypress.com SUBJECT: Revealed - why Congress is not doing much good 30 Sep 2008 Dear Editor, Daily Press: The FIRST House vote on the 'Economic Stabilization' bill --- the 'bailout' --- REVEALS WHY it is repeatedly observed and reported that Congress has not been able to accomplish much in the past seven years or so. Anyone who watched the vote on C-SPAN --- and the statements by Representatives before and after the vote --- would realize that the (more or less) MODERATE Democrats and Republicans voted FOR the legislation ... while the (more or less) EXTREME Democrats and Republicans voted AGAINST the legislation, and the LATTER won out. The Revelation: The EXTREME views, on either side of the middle views, have enough votes to vote down any moderate proposal. The Result: The legislation that manages to pass is an odd mixture of you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours line-items and earmarks. And that legislation is written, for the most part by EXTREME Democrats and Republicans (with considerable help from lobbyists). NOW I see what has been evolving these many years --- and what has gotten really bad in the past seven years or so. Thus we have a main source of the low ratings of Congress --- and the source of the perverted laws, motivating all the wrong behaviors, coming out of Congress.
Cheers, [P.S. I do not mean to imply that the extremists were wrong in voting against the 'bailout'. I think the 'bailout' was probably not a good thing. As I point out in other blog posts, I think there are powerful forces at work in the economy, beyond bad home mortgages --- credit card debt, credit default swaps (CDS's) --- that will probably make the $700 billion capital infusion into the banking system end up as a failure. My point is that the bail-out vote revealed how so many perverted laws have been passed in the past 7 years, and more. It's due to an unholy alliance of extreme ends of the political spectrum. ] |
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END-OF-LETTER.
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