19 posts tagged “government”
It is no secret that our lawmakers don’t read many of the bills that they sign. It really angers me that they do so on major issues, but doing it at all should upset all Americans. The public’s lack of engagement with the political process is a major concern of mine going forward, but I feel with the focus on health care lately, we should take advantage of the publics interest now. The public needs to be made aware that our elected officials sign bills into law that affect their lives frequently, oftentimes without reading them.
Do you remember the outrage over employee bonuses from the stimulus package? Well, that was in there.
The stimulus bill, for example, was 1,100 pages long and made available to Congress and the public just 13 hours before lawmakers voted on it. The bill has failed to provide the promised help to the job market, and there was outrage when it was discovered that the legislation included an amendment allowing American International Group, a bailout recipient, to give out millions in employee bonuses.
Here are a couple examples demonstrating the fact that our leaders are not reading what they sign.
» House energy and global warming bill, passed June 26, 2009. 1,200 pages. Available online 15 hours before vote.
» $789 billion stimulus bill, passed Feb. 14, 2009. 1,100 pages. Available online 13 hours before debate.
» $700 billion financial sector rescue package, passed Oct. 3, 2008. 169 pages. Available online 29 hours before vote.
» USA Patriot domestic surveillance bill, passed Oct. 23, 2001. Unavailable to the public before debate.
What really angers me is that the political parties use this tactic as a means to gain power or leverage. The Republicans did it with the Patriot Act, and now it is the Democrats who are strongly opposing transparency. While both sides are failing us spectacularly, it’s a disgrace and the fact that they don’t want the public to be able to read bills before they are passed both goes against Obama’s claims of supporting transparency in government and our leader’s civic duty.
While I don’t expect our leaders to be able to fully understand every law-simply not possible as they are written in “lawyerese”…and have you ever talked with your representative? They are unlikely to be the most intelligent person you have ever met-I think that opening them up to the public is what needs to be done. The public is likely to be apathetic at large, and the various media outlets will spin the information towards their political leanings, but the information would be out there for intelligent people to debate. That is the most important thing. We have the means to create an informed populace, and that can only benefit everyone.
Remember when Obama said this:
Mr. Obama promised that he, “…will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.” Just to make sure we understood him, Mr. Obama repeated in many of his campaign speeches, “When there’s a bill that ends up on my desk as president, you the public will have five days to look online and find out what’s in it before I sign it, so that you know what your government’s doing.”
Here is what he did:
The first two bills he signed were not posted on the White House website for five days (both were signed within two days of hitting his desk). In late May, Mr. Obama signed four bills in four days, the day after each arrived on his desk. You could argue that the Recovery Act/stimulus bill was an “emergency” (I wouldn’t) but Mr. Obama signed the Recovery Act less than 18 hours after the bill was finalized and well before almost any member of Congress, let alone the public , had read the Bill.
We deserve better.
This posting was automatically scheduled on 10/11/09
"You don't need to know. You can't know." That's what Kathy Norris, a 60-year-old grandmother of eight, was told when she tried to ask court officials why, the day before, federal agents had subjected her home to a furious search.
The agents who spent half a day ransacking Mrs. Norris' longtime home in Spring, Texas, answered no questions while they emptied file cabinets, pulled books off shelves, rifled through drawers and closets, and threw the contents on the floor.
The six agents, wearing SWAT gear and carrying weapons, were with - get this- the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Kathy and George Norris lived under the specter of a covert government investigation for almost six months before the government unsealed a secret indictment and revealed why the Fish and Wildlife Service had treated their family home as if it were a training base for suspected terrorists. Orchids.
That's right. Orchids.
Criminalizing Everyone - Washington Post
The overcriminalization of the populace by our government is going to become a growing concern. As information increases exponentially and technology facilitates the creation of laws and prohibitions by people who may lack the requisite knowledge to do so, we are all increasingly in danger of becoming criminals. While it is my opinion that there are too many laws on the books in our country (many of them contradictory), it simply isn’t reasonable to expect our lawmakers to be experts on every topic. It is their responsibility however, to draft laws based upon a common understanding, driven by a common good for the benefit of the public. I agree with The Cato Institute's Timothy Lynch, an expert on overcriminalization, who called for "a clean line between lawful conduct and unlawful conduct." A person should not be deemed a criminal unless that person "crossed over that line knowing what he or she was doing." Seems like common sense, but apparently it isn't to some federal officials.
Rudy Ruiz recently wrote a very thoughtful and accurate opinion article last week that asked the question:
Why has it become so difficult to even consider changing our minds about important issues?
The current debate over healthcare reform has really pushed this notion in front of the public. There has been a shift, especially recently, wherein politicians refuse to budge from their stance (almost always partisan) as the notion of changing your mind has been deemed to mark you as a “flip-flopper.” This negative connotation, rather than potentially marking you as a rational individual, carries with it the wrath of an overzealous public. Once again, Washington isn’t about doing what is right for its constituents, but rather staying in power so that they can do what is right for themselves and their friends.
This close-mindedness is being driven into the public consciousness by our leaders. Consider this recent example of U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann rallying conservatives to block the healthcare reform bill and any other Democratic initiatives:
[she warned] the proposals “have the strength to destroy this country forever.”
“This cannot pass,” the Minnesota Republican told a crowd at a Denver gathering sponsored by the Independence Institute. “What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass…”
Bachmann: "Slit our wrists; be blood brothers"
I believe that the absolute best example of close-mindedness and outright absurdity comes from Republican Senator Charles Grassley. This is absolute proof that our leaders aren’t our leaders, but instead are interested in only themselves and partisan politics:
In an interview today on MSNBC's "Morning Meeting with Dylan Ratigan," Senate Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R) said he'd vote against any health-care reform bill coming out of the committee unless it has wide support from Republicans -- even if the legislation contains EVERYTHING Grassley wants.
"I am negotiating for Republicans," he said. "If I can't negotiate something that gets more than four Republicans, I'm not a good negotiator."
When NBC's Chuck Todd, in a follow-up question on the show, asked the Iowa Republican if he'd vote against what Grassley might consider to be a "good deal" -- i.e., gets everything he asks for from Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D) -- Grassley replied, "It isn't a good deal if I can't sell my product to more Republicans."
In short, Grassley says he's willing to walk away from legislation in which he gets everything he wants.
GOP Support Most Important to Grassley
I don’t mean to pick on the Republicans, as I don’t like the Democrats particularly either. It just so happens that they seem to have thrown a rod lately in their behavior regarding healthcare reform. Let’s get back to Rudy Ruiz’s article and extrapolate it a bit more towards the general populace. He contends that three factors exacerbate this paralysis by lack of analysis: labels, lifestyles and listening.
First, the labels ascribed to many potential policy tools render sensible options taboo, loading what could be rational, economic or social measures with moral baggage. This narrows our choices, hemming in policy makers.
Second, our lifestyles favor knee-jerk reactions. The way we think, work and live in the Digital Age demands we quickly categorize information without investing time into rich interaction, research and understanding.
We're hesitant to ask questions because we don't have time to listen to the long, complicated answers that might follow. And we lack the time to fact-check competing claims. In our haste, it's easier to echo our party's position than drill down, questioning whether party leaders are motivated by our best interests or the best interests of their biggest contributors.
Third, we tend to listen only to like-minded opinions as media fragmentation encourages us to filter out varying perspectives
Rudy Ruiz: Open Your Minds America
We live in a hectic world where our time is being stretched increasingly slim. New advances enable us to do more, but at the expense of free time. It is important for people to realize that the key to any intelligent, important decision is to gather as much information from BOTH sides, analyze it, and then form your opinion. Given the lack of time in our lives, people take the easy way out, and merely puppet the ideas of the people whose ideology it is they follow. If we are ever to succeed as a nation, then this practice must end.
And as an aside- I frequently debate people who are uninformed on issues and merely spout rhetoric, and to those of you I kindly ask:
If you are going to defend a position, defend it relative to your knowledge on the subject. Thank you.
I continue to be puzzled by the Swine Flu epidemic. Initially, when it was on a relatively small scale, it was all over the news, but now that it is much more widespread and has affected orders of magnitude greater amounts of people worldwide, the mainstream media has not said anything about it. Regardless, our government has decided to do something about it. In news that should be covered to a much greater degree (Press=MASSIVE FAIL), the U.S. Government plans to vaccinate at least half of the country's population within months. How benevolent of them right? The U.S. has never tried to immunize so many people in such a short period of time.
I have a few concerns however:
Washington Post: Swine Flu Campaign Waits on VaccineAmong the unknowns: how many shots people will need, what the correct dosage should be, and how to avoid confusing the public with an overlapping effort to combat the regular seasonal flu.
The campaign is haunted by memories of the government's ill-fated 1976 effort to vaccinate against swine flu. The epidemic fizzled, but the vaccine was given to 40 million people and blamed for causing a rare paralyzing disorder known as Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
To address concerns of pregnant women and parents with young children, some vaccine is being produced without a mercury additive. And because the short-term studies can identify only common, immediate side effects, the CDC will step up monitoring for rarer, serious complications such as Guillain-Barré.
It seems that there is a large financial component as well.
Washington Post: Swine Flu Campaign Waits on VaccineThe federal government has spent close to $2 billion to buy up to 195 million doses of vaccine and adjuvant, including the standard shots and the newer FluMist nasal spray vaccine made by MedImmune of Gaithersburg.
The government is prepared to buy enough to vaccinate every person -- 600 million doses all together -- if the pandemic or demand warrants it. That could increase the cost to $5 billion for the vaccine alone. It would cost at least $9 billion to administer the vaccine to the entire population, according to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
The CDC is formulating a $4.8 million multimedia campaign to encourage people to get vaccinated and help alleviate concerns and confusion, including radio and television public service announcements, print ads, and messages delivered via Twitter, RSS feeds and video podcasts on YouTube.
If they are spending billions of dollars on something that may not be needed, they certainly better advertise it right? What strikes me about all of this is that the H1N1 virus is typically no more harmful than the usual flu. The symptoms are very similar as well. I suspect that there will be many misdiagnosis this fall and that that may not be unintentional in some cases. It has the vibe of being a mass overreaction to me. I hope that this fall, I am proven right.
I have to admit that I was rather optimistic when Obama was elected President. He struck me as someone who actually may be able to cut through the Washington machine and get something done. I was fearful that the machine would batten down the hatches and work collectively to prevent him from doing anything. As a geek and someone who loves learning, I was most optimistic about his stance on transparency in government. Sadly, I have been let down significantly.
The most recent, and glaring example of this (since I have beat the bailout thing into the ground) is that the White House is refusing to disclose visits by health industry executives.
Reporting from Washington -- Invoking an argument used by President George W. Bush, the Obama administration has turned down a request from a watchdog group for a list of health industry executives who have visited the White House to discuss the massive healthcare overhaul.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to the Secret Service asking about visits from 18 executives representing health insurers, drug makers, doctors and other players in the debate. The group wants the material in order to gauge the influence of those executives in crafting a new healthcare policy.
The Secret Service sent a reply stating that documents revealing the frequency of such visits were considered presidential records exempt from public disclosure laws. The agency also said it was advised by the Justice Department that the Secret Service was within its rights to withhold the information because of the "presidential communications privilege."
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics said it would file suit against the Obama administration as early as today. The group already has sued the administration over its failure to release details about visits from coal industry executives.
White House Continues Bush Policies
To be fair, Ben LaBolt (a White House spokesman) said that they were reviewing the policy. How many times have we heard promises from our leaders that have gone unfulfilled however? It happens in the vast majority of instances.
So what happened? Having promised transparency, the administration should be willing to disclose who it is consulting in shaping healthcare policy, said an attorney for the citizens' group. In its letter requesting the records, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics asked about visits from Billy Tauzin, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans; William Weldon, chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson; and J. James Rohack, president of the American Medical Assn., among others.
"It's extremely disappointing," said Anne Weismann, the group's chief counsel. Obama is relying on a legal argument that "continues one of the bad, anti-transparency, pro-secrecy approaches that the Bush administration had taken. And it seems completely at odds with the president's commitment . . . to bring a new level of transparency to his government."
White House Continues Bush Policies
I have to agree with her. I had hoped that Obama would be able to bring about a shift in the mindset of Washington. Transparency is something that our founding fathers would have wanted, and it sickens me that we don't have it. We have the tools in our modern age to make information available to all who desire to view it, but Washington has been sullying itself for far to long to be willing to let the public view the train wreck it has become.
Can anyone see how this is going to end? If you can’t, let me tell you. AIG, despite fleecing us taxpayers for billions, will file bankruptcy and close. If you look at the business that you have left, then you quickly realize that they lack the capacity to remain viable. They only have a couple arms that remain profitable, and the profits generated by those are small and continue to dwindle. When you factor in public sentiment towards the company, the efforts made by other businesses-as well as their partners- to distance themselves from the company, it doesn’t take much to realize that this is a sinking ship.
There is one other large factor in all of this: the work force. Don’t think for a second that the employees at AIG are unaware of the future of the company. Many, including some of those that received million-dollar plus bonuses, have already left, and many that remain have put out feelers on Craigslist, Monster, and Twitter.
The real problem at AIG is that the cat is out of the bag. The company was making so much in hedge funds that it focused all of its efforts there at the expense of its legitimate businesses. Due to the enormity of the collapse and how much they leveraged, they have, in effect, dug themselves a hole that they can never get out of.
Therefore, there remains two possible options: we either let them fail and we take our lumps, or we continue to shovel money towards them in order to delay the inevitable. The bottom line is that they do not possess the means to repay the government loans. Continuing to fund them is both asinine and irresponsible. Yet we will continue to do so. Why?
Because it is political suicide to do otherwise. Look at all of the flack Obama and his administration has taken from the media already for telling people the truth about the economy. There is a thought process that believes he has to lie to the people and tell them that everything is fine; that we are on the road to recovery; things aren’t as bad as they seem; that they have the answers to fix this…that belies the fact that this doesn’t serve anyone. If people begin to invest again, based upon false information, then all we are doing is returning to the status quo. A status quo that got us here in the first place.
Remember how TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) was supposed to help only healthy banks? Well, in classic form, politicians did what they always do...helped themselves and fucked over the public.
Troubled OneUnited Bank in Boston didn't look much like a candidate for aid from the Treasury Department's bank bailout fund last fall.
The Treasury had said it would give money only to healthy banks, to jump-start lending. But OneUnited had seen most of its capital evaporate. Moreover, it was under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives' use.
Nonetheless, in December OneUnited got a $12 million injection from the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. One apparent factor: the intercession of Rep. Barney Frank, the powerful head of the House Financial Services Committee.
Mr. Frank, by his own account, wrote into the TARP bill a provision specifically aimed at helping this particular home-state bank. And later, he acknowledges, he spoke to regulators urging that OneUnited be considered for a cash injection.
Please take note of the bolded statement...
A link between such lobbying and the release of TARP cash can't be proved. Treasury officials have said that political influence plays no role in the selection process. "The decisions are made by a committee of officials at Treasury based on recommendations and data provided by the regulators through the applications process," said Brookly McLaughlin, who was a spokeswoman for the Treasury until the Bush administration ended on Tuesday.
It can't be proved!!!??? Didn't Mr. Frank admit it!? The political landscape in our country just pisses me off!
The procedure for getting a capital injection is complex. State and federal regulators sometimes complain that even they don't understand how it works.
A bank applies through its federal regulator, which either recommends to the Treasury that the bank receive money or quietly tells the bank to pull its application. A public turndown could be a death sentence because it would tell investors and consumers the government thinks the bank isn't viable.
If the regulator forwards the application, the Treasury decides whether to approve it. If the Treasury's reviewing team is uncertain, it sends the request to a panel of federal regulators to debate the matter.
This entire thing was flawed from the get go. It also ties in with my previous blog post. Remember, the point of this bailout was to give banks money to cover debt so that they, in turn, would lend money to consumers again. Ask yourself if this has happened?
Simply absurd.
The Republicans want to alter the Democrat's $825 million dollar spending package. I may not have an issue with it, because there are some issues with the proposal as it stands now in my view. The majority of the spending takes place a year from now or afterwards...That is my largest hangup. With that said, the Republicans are clinging to their old way of thinking...
They want the government to cut taxes and offer incentives for businesses to increase spending. This old way of thinking worked post-WWII, but it WILL NOT work in our modern world. Why? You would have to be an idiot not to realize how many businesses are poorly ran in our country today. If we offer these incentives, as we have in the past, we will continue to allow those in power to gather more wealth and protect themselves from oversight. We must not allow this to pass. I like that Obama is flat out spending the money. Spending it on tangible goods and services is the only sure way to get results. How can you trust anyone in the business world (or politics for that matter)? At the very least, if Obama follows through with this plan, we will at least have something to show for it. And that counts for alot in politics anymore.
Imagine a country where the government regularly checks the waistlines of citizens over age 40. Anyone deemed too fat would be required to undergo diet counseling. Those who fail to lose sufficient weight could face further "reeducation" and their communities subject to stiff fines.
Is this some nightmarish dystopia?
No, this is contemporary Japan.
The Japanese government argues that it must regulate citizens' lifestyles because it is paying their health costs. This highlights one of the greatly underappreciated dangers of "universal healthcare." Any government that attempts to guarantee healthcare must also control its costs. The inevitable next step will be to seek to control citizens' health and their behavior. Hence, Americans should beware that if we adopt universal healthcare, we also risk creating a "nanny state on steroids" antithetical to core American principles.
Other countries with universal healthcare are already restricting individual freedoms in the name of controlling health costs. For example, the British government has banned some television ads for eggs on the grounds that they were promoting an unhealthy lifestyle. This is a blatant infringement of egg sellers' rights to advertise their products.
In 2007, New Zealand banned Richie Trezise, a Welsh submarine cable specialist, from entering the country on the grounds that his obesity would "impose significant costs ... on New Zealand's health or special education services." Richie later lost weight and was allowed to immigrate, but his wife had trouble slimming and was kept home. Germany has mounted an aggressive anti-obesity campaign in workplaces and schools to promote dieting and exercise. Citizens who fail to cooperate are branded as "antisocial" for costing the government billions of euros in medical expenses.
Of course healthy diet and exercise are good. But these are issues of personal – not government – responsibility. So long as they don't harm others, adults should have the right to eat and drink what they wish – and the corresponding responsibility to enjoy (or suffer) the consequences of their choices. Anyone who makes poor lifestyle choices should pay the price himself or rely on voluntary charity, not demand that the government pay for his choices.
Just as universal healthcare will further fuel the nanny state, the nanny state mind-set helps fuel the drive toward universal healthcare. Individuals aren't regarded as competent to decide how to manage their lives and their health. So the government provides "cradle to grave" coverage of their healthcare.
Nanny state regulations and universal healthcare thus feed a vicious cycle of increasing government control over individuals. Both undermine individual responsibility and habituate citizens to ever-worsening erosions of their individual rights. Both promote dependence on government. Both undermine the virtues of independence and rationality. Both jeopardize the very foundations of a free society.
The American Founding Fathers who fought and died for our freedoms would be appalled to know their descendants were allowing the government to dictate what they could eat and drink. The Founders correctly understood that the proper role of government is to protect individual rights and otherwise leave men free to live – not tell us how many eggs we should eat.
Governors of five U.S. states urged the federal government to provide $1 trillion in aid to the country’s 50 states to help pay for education, welfare and infrastructure as states struggle with steep budget deficits amid a deepening recession.
The governors of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin — all Democrats — said the initiative for the two-year aid package was backed by other governors and follows a meeting in December where governors called on President-elect Barack Obama to help them maintain services in the face of slumping revenues.
Gov. David Paterson of New York said 43 states now have budget deficits totaling some $100 billion as tax revenues plunge.
“It’s clear that the federal government needs to step in and jump-start the economy,” said Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts.
The latest package calls for $350 billion to create jobs by building or repairing roads, bridges and other public works; $250 billion to maintain education; and another $250 billion in “counter-cyclical” spending such as extending unemployment benefits and food stamps, which are typically a responsibility of the states.
The remainder would be used to fund middle-class tax cuts, stimulate the embattled housing market, and stem the tide of home foreclosures through a loan-modification program.
Governor's Call for Stimulus Package
Who didn't think that our leader's would jump at any chance they can to get free money? Do you want to know the strange part? I am potentially for this proposal. It makes sense for the governor's to call for such spending given Obama's stance on stimulating the economy. What it would take for me to support such a measure would be a HIGH level of accountability. I am not talking the laughable accountability that our leaders accorded the jackals in the finance sector, or the nincompoops in the auto industry, but real accountability. I hope that the Obama administration can accomplish this. I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt this time, in the hopes that his team can truly accomplish something in Washington.
Wait! There is more! The U.S. steel industry is calling for Obama to implement a public works plan that could be worth $1 Trillion over two years. Guess what? I am for this as well. As you know, I am typically against government spending, but that is because they typically spend it on asinine projects that further the croneyism of our Capital. I am for infrastructure spending, and so is Obama, so it makes sense that the struggling steel sector would appeal (I still hate lobbyists) to this opportunity and try to capitalize.
I do NOT approve of bailing out the fools on Wall Street who actually thought of ways to create money out of thin air, or the morons in Detroit who caved to Union demands while not having any vision for their companies for the future, but I do approve of giving money to projects that can have tangible results. That is the key difference here. With these two spending proposals, we get something tangible. With the financial bailout for example, we get this:
zero accountability and nothing that benefits the citizens of this nation. I can stand behind tangible results. I hope that Obama can hold these entities accountable. If so, we may actually be able to get out of our financial crisis.
