32 posts tagged “politics”
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
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.
A Rasmussen Poll recently highlighted some interesting information regarding our opinions of the jobs that our elected officials are doing in Washington. Among the highlights:
- If they could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress, just 25% of voters nationwide would keep the current batch of legislators.
- 57% would vote to replace the entire Congress and start all over again.
- With Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress, it's not surprising to find that the number of Democrats who would vote to keep the entire Congress has grown from 25% last fall to 43% today.
- 70% of those not affiliated with either major party would vote to replace all of the elected politicians in the House and Senate. That’s up from 62% last year.
- 69% of GOP Voters say Republicans in Congress are out of touch with the party base.
- Fifty-nine percent (59%) now believe that members of Congress are overpaid.
- Seventy-five percent (75%) say members of Congress are more interested in their own careers than they are in helping people.
- (Most shocking-sic.) Despite these reviews, more than 90% of Congress routinely gets reelected every two years.
57% Would Like to Replace Entire Congress
I would like to ask you why you think it is that we keep electing people whom we think so lowly of? Why do we elect people who we presuppose to do a bad job and that work only to further their own interests?
I can speak with first-hand knowledge on the overpayment issue. I have met and interacted with our representative, Mary Hubler, and I find her to be the best example of many of the ills mentioned in the survey. She tours the state, meeting the same groups, attending the same dinners/events/etc., pays lip service to the popular causes, and she backs those who back her.
Mary Hubler's Voting Skew
It was expected when the Constitution was written that there would be a 50% turnover rate in the House of Representatives each election. This lasted for 100 years until the New Deal era when turnover plummeted.
The culture of power, protection, and in-your-face croneyism, was exemplified the other day by Sherman Frederick. He was flouting his power to the Las Vegas Review Journal over some print that disagreed with him and his (well-funded) stances. Having lost the memory of the free press, apparently, he remains staunch and pig-headed about the entire ordeal. Here is an excerpt from the Las Vegas Review Journal’s recent statement:
But to fully capture the magnitude of Reid’s remark (and to stop him from doing the same thing to others) it must be called what it was — a full-on threat perpetrated by a bully who has forgotten that he was elected to office to protect Nevadans, not sound like he’s shaking them down.
No citizen should expect this kind of behavior from a U.S. Senator. It is certainly not becoming of a man who is the majority leader in the U.S. Senate. And it absolutely is not what anyone would expect from a man who now asks Nevadans to send him back to the Senate for a fifth term.
Read the full article.
Those are clearly fighting words.
Recently, I posted some information about how companies use High Frequency Trading techniques as a way to reap profits by acting as a middleman of sorts. They are able to get between orders being placed in nanoseconds, affecting the price that you and I and mutual funds pay. Through the wonders of croneyism in our society amongst those in power, there are no laws against this practice. Here is a review:
HFT computers can detect large buy orders for a stock, the kind of buy orders mutual funds make, even when the funds try to disguise them. The HTF system can then purchase that stock before the mutual fund’s order is executed. The fund ends up paying more per share, and the HTF traders pocket the difference.
This isn’t illegal; it’s akin to cutting into a long line at the supermarket. And it’s just as infuriating. "It just ticks off mutual fund managers who feel their stock moves against them every time they show up," says Al Berkeley, chairman of Pipeline Trading Systems, a trading service designed to help institutions and brokers outsmart HFT systems that try to detect their orders.
How much does all of this cost mutual funds in higher stock prices, or lower prices when they sell? It’s not clear, but one study by the Tabb Group estimates that high-frequency traders made about $21 billion in profits last year — much of that at the expense of mutual funds.
Wall Street’s High-Tech War on Investors
As unfair as that sounds, there is an even more blatant abuse of the financial system called flash orders. Flash orders are essentially the very quick display of trading orders to a select few group of insiders. In an effort for small, upstart exchanges to compete with established ones like the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq, they offer these flash orders to large customers in the hope that they big customers will split the fees with the small exchange. A primer:
Smaller exchanges have to pass along big orders to the big exchanges if it looks like they can’t fill them. To avoid this loss, they "flash" these orders to big customers for less than half a second. The hope is that big players will help fill the order, splitting the fees with the small exchange.
But this also gives the insider an advance look at a trading price you and I never see. Mind you, it’s a half-second advantage; you and I couldn’t do anything with it anyway. But those with HFT systems can.
Wall Street’s High-Tech War on Investors
What’s more, is that the HFT systems are so fast and powerful that they can
search the market every few milliseconds and have the ability to sense the
supply and demand for a given stock. They can then use this information to
purchase the stock with a limited supply and sell it for a quick profit. Here
is how it works in graphical form:
When it came out, and the SEC offered lip service to the issue, all of the
exchanges said that they would stop providing them soon. I would advise people
not to hold their breath. There is a lot of money and lobbying in this sector,
and money trumps reason in our country in almost all instances.
If the only way we compared the two systems – U.S. versus Canada – was with statistics, there is a clear victor. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to dispute the fact that Canada spends less money on health care to get better outcomes.
Yet, the debate rages on. Indeed, it has reached a fever pitch since President Barack Obama took office, with Americans either dreading or hoping for the dawn of a single-payer health care system. Opponents of such a system cite Canada as the best example of what not to do, while proponents laud that very same Canadian system as the answer to all of America’s health care problems…
As America comes to grips with the reality that changes are desperately needed within its health care infrastructure, it might prove useful to first debunk some myths about the Canadian system.
Myth: Taxes in Canada are extremely high, mostly because of national health care.
In actuality, taxes are nearly equal on both sides of the border. Overall, Canada’s taxes are slightly higher than those in the U.S. However, Canadians are afforded many benefits for their tax dollars, even beyond health care (e.g., tax credits, family allowance, cheaper higher education), so the end result is a wash. At the end of the day, the average after-tax income of Canadian workers is equal to about 82 percent of their gross pay. In the U.S., that average is 81.9 percent.
Myth: Canada’s health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.
The U.S. has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn’t when everybody is covered.
Source: Denver Post
Not so incidentally, single-payer systems run by the U.S. government can approach Canadian efficiency. Medicare and Social Security run at less than 3% overhead.
Myth: The Canadian system is significantly more expensive than that of the U.S.
Ten percent of Canada’s GDP is spent on health care for 100 percent of the population. The U.S. spends 17 percent of its GDP but 15 percent of its population has no coverage whatsoever and millions of others have inadequate coverage. In essence, the U.S. system is considerably more expensive than Canada’s. Part of the reason for this is uninsured and underinsured people in the U.S. still get sick and eventually seek care. People who cannot afford care wait until advanced stages of an illness to see a doctor and then do so through emergency rooms, which cost considerably more than primary care services.
What the American taxpayer may not realize is that such care costs about $45 billion per year, and someone has to pay it. This is why insurance premiums increase every year for insured patients while co-pays and deductibles also rise rapidly.
Myth: Canada’s government decides who gets health care and when they get it.
While HMOs and other private medical insurers in the U.S. do indeed make such decisions, the only people in Canada to do so are physicians. In Canada, the government has absolutely no say in who gets care or how they get it. Medical decisions are left entirely up to doctors, as they should be.
I am the last person to ever defend Canada on anything. In fact, for some unknown and unwarranted reason, I hate Canada. Go ahead and blame South Park if you want, but that isn't the case. I will be the first to say that the healthcare system is better than what we have in the United States. It CERTAINLY isn't perfect, but I am saying that it is better than what we currently have.
For some perspective, it's important to understand that I hate the medical industry. I loathe going to the Dr. unless I am about ready to keel over. I had an interesting discussion recently with a friend in Thailand (originally from the U.S.) where we discussed this issue rather heatedly. I came to be of the opinion that unless you have to deal with the medical industry in a serious capacity (ie. some life-saving/changing/etc. surgery), then you can't truly see how broken our system is. I think that once you have that perspective, you can then toss aside any preconceptions you may have and begin to truly wrap your head around the issues at hand.
The congressional panel investigating what happened to all that bank bailout money has issued a subpoena to the Federal Reserve, asking them to hand over all documents relating to the takeover of Merrill Lynch by the Bank of America.
On January 1, BofA finalized its purchase of Merrill Lynch for just over $29.1 billion. That made the bank eligible for an additional $20 billion in federal rescue money, bringing BofA's total to some $45 billion. Now, Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Edolphus Towns (D-NY) want to know exactly what the banks and the Federal Reserve agreed to when they arranged the deal last year.
Full text of the press release from Kucinich's office:
Washington D.C. (June 8, 2009) -- House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns (D-NY) and Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) today served a subpoena on the Federal Reserve (the Fed) to compel it to turn over documents related to Bank of America’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch.
The full committee and Domestic Policy Subcommittee, under the leadership of Chairman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), have been investigating the circumstances surrounding the federal government’s bailout of the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch transaction. Specific documents subpoenaed include emails, notes of conversations and other documents.
New York Attorney-General Andrew Cuomo has claimed that, in 2008, then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke strong-armed BofA into buying Merrill -- a move that, if true, could expose Paulson and Bernanke to prosecution.
Last week, news services reported that the House had asked Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. That hearing takes place on Thursday (June 11).
The Raw Story
Elizabeth Coleman, Inspector General of the Federal Reserve. What the hell does she even do then? You have to love how someone holds a position like that without a clue as to what the hell it is they do.
In case your a partisan screaming idiot, I am here to tell you that all politicians are the same. Rather than differentiate them based upon some ideology that many only follow in order to get votes, we should simply categorize them as what they are: people in power. If you don’t believe me, then take a look around the world. You don’t see Democrats and Republicans (as we define them anyways). What you see are people in power doing the same things that the people in power here are doing.
Consider all of ass-covering that the Republicans (specifically Cheney) did during our last administration. Now consider that the Democrats are doing the same thing under Nancy Pelosi. I must admit that I consider her a mental nitwit and an incompetent, I am still shocked that she would consider attempting to do such a thing in the Obama administration with his attempts to bring clarity to the haze in Washington. It could certainly be a smokescreen, but I don’t think so. While I don’t believe that he will be able to fully realize this, I applaud the effort. Washington has been dirty for too long for one man to change it. The same dinosaurs that helped corrupt our system in order to benefit themselves are still there. They don’t have any incentive to change the system. I think that the administration will be able to push forward small changes, but that is all. I hope otherwise however.
Let’s get back to the Nancy Pelosi situation. I came across this in the Washington Post this evening:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is working to buffer lawmakers from federal investigators. This is a bad idea. Special legal protections for politicians encourage unethical conduct.
Democrats facing scrutiny include the chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, for his close ties to the defense lobby firm PMA Group, which is under federal investigation; House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel of New York about a number of tax issues; Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. of Illinois over his reported effort to persuade ousted Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich to appoint him to fill President Obama's former Senate seat; and Rep. Jane Harman of California, who reportedly was taped in 2005 by the National Security Agency purportedly agreeing to help seek leniency for two accused Israeli spies in exchange for help in lobbying her appointment to chair the House Intelligence Committee.
Nancy Pelosi is trying to justify it by invoking the separation of powers as justification. The issue gets bogged down in the courts (naturally) from that point on. When a corrupt entity such as Congress can push forward laws, it is only natural that they will have a few that cover their own ass. Its a sick flaw, and one that I imagine our forefathers never would have considered. While there were certainly men of questionable motives and behavior during that time, I can’t imagine that they would have been able to envision such a state as we have now in our legislative branch.
I never really wanted to say that phrase (as it is L.A.M.E.), but here I go. I am putting on my Obama cheerleading outfit. Why? The number one reason is that he is actually going balls to the wall since taking office. He is pushing forward his agenda (agree with it or not), and getting things done. Its rather refreshing to see results so rapidly out of Washington. Previously, it took forever to get anything done, and it was typically bad!
I am also excited because he put a provision into his stimulus bill that preserves net neutrality!
The new bill is perhaps most significant as it represents the first major legislative victory for both net neutrality and open networks. Net neutrality, stymied under the Bush administration via threat of veto, is the concept that internet traffic, including P2P streams, should not be discriminated against or throttled. Open networking is the principal that network providers should not be allowed to discriminate against certain manufacturers or providers devices, if they have the capability to access the network. Those receiving funding to build networks under the bill will have to abide by these principles.
The bill also includes some of the internet speed mandates previously mentioned. Seventy five percent of the networks built must be fast enough to support video conferencing. While telecom comments are scarce, CTIA, the wireless carriers' principal trade group, did urge lawmakers to vote against the proposal which it called "vague, undefined and unnecessary", citing opposition of telecoms to the openness provisions.
I must admit that I am overjoyed by this! My largest complaint with the Obama camp was the selection of Biden as his VP (Mr. Screw the consumer - Go Big Media!), but I have to give a lot of credit to Obama for sticking to his guns. I am not naive, and I realize that much of what he proposes right now will get passed because all of the elected officials want to be associated with his positive media blitzkreig. I think that Obama recognizes this to some degree as well.
I hope that our country isn't too far past the breaking point so that he gets a decent chance to rebuild our country.
As I and many others have said for as long as I can remember, the United States (and arguably, the world) is rigged so that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
According to an OECD report on income equality and poverty, the income of the riches 10 percent of people is, on average across OECD countries, nearly 9 times that of the poorest 10%. In the United States, that gap is even greater.
In the United States, the richest 10 percent earn an average of $93,000 - the highest level in the OECD. The poorest 10 percent earn an average of $5,800 - about 20 percent lower than the OECD average.
Madoff has been charged with a single count of securities fraud. He declined to enter a plea in Manhattan’s U.S. District Court and was released on $10 million bail. He faces up to 20 years in jail and a $5 million fine if convicted.
