Idea #1: Someone suggested that it would be very wise for the Republicans to acquiesce, and to accept Obama's (and the Democrats') proposal to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Warren Buffett and other wealthy people have pooh-poohed the Republicans' contention that when wealthy people are taxed more, they invest less; therefore, raising the taxes on the rich will not have the net negative effect the Republicans are predicting.
But the better reason to raise the taxes on the wealthy is that, four years from now, when we're in worse shape than we are today, the Republicans can point at President Obama and the Democrats in Congress and say, "See? We TOLD you it wouldn't work! But NOOOOO, you wouldn't listen!" It would give them a lot a lot of leverage for unseating all of those Democrats.
Idea #2: This idea has been floating through Facebook and email lore, and it's a perfectly sensible idea. The idea is that we take away all of the special privileges that Congresscriters enjoy, and make them live the same way the rest of us live: the same tax laws, Social Security payments, Medicare/Medicaid payments, health plans, and everything else. They have forgotten how normal people live, and they need to be made to remember.
And here's a third idea, tangentially related to the fiscal cliff and the financial mismanagement that brought us to this point in the first place:
Idea #3: It was indeed Warren Buffett who proposed a constitutional amendment that says, in essence, whenever Congress cannot balance the budget for a given year, all of the members of Congress automatically become ineligible for re-election.
Showing posts with label representative. Show all posts
Showing posts with label representative. Show all posts
Monday, December 3, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
I didn't vote for Grover Norquist
Here's a great illustration of why we should despise, and even get rid of, the unelected powermongers who prowl the streets of Washington, New York City, London, and other seats of power in the world.
Grover Norquist is the president of an organization called "Americans for Tax Reform." Twenty years ago, he started pushing newly elected Republican Congressmen (and women), or those who were running for election, to sign a pledge that they would never vote to raise taxes.
After 20 years of fiscal irresponsibility on the part of both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, our country finds itself in a difficult financial position. We need to implement our own "austerity measures" before they are dictated to us by someone else — like international banks and foreign governments. We are facing a fiscal crisis which can be resolved in several ways, most of them painful. One of the least painful ways is a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.
I didin't say it was "painless." I said it was "one of the least painful." Don't be stupid.
You will recall that, on August 2, 2011, the U.S. Congress set up a bipartisan "supercommittee" that was supposed to break through the Congressional gridlock and come up with a solution to this fiscal problem while there was still time to act. As an incentive to getting things done, Congress wrote a Plan B into the legislation, a bitter pill that the nation would have to swallow on January 2, 2013 if the supercommittee failed in their mission. This was no secret to anybody — nor was the timing of Plan B, two convenient months after a critical national election. Congress as a whole may be a pack of idiots, but they're clever idiots.
At any rate, the supercommittee proved to be as fractious and stubborn as the body which had created it, and they hit their deadline without completing their mission. So Plan B kicked in, and the automatic spending cuts and other measures that it specified will also kick in, on January 2, 2013. These automatic measures, if activated, will severely impact the still-fragile economy and could drive the country back into a recession. Some wag coined the term "fiscal cliff" to describe the country's situation, and now everybody is saying it. I'm so sick of hearing the term that I get the urge to chew my leg off every time someone says it.
Now that the election is over, the executive and legislative branches are scrambling to find a way to deactivate this time bomb before it goes off. As I said earlier, one solution involves raising taxes.
Enter Grover Norquist.
In general, Democrats have always been eager to raise taxes, and Republicans have been just as eager to cut taxes, or at least not to raise them. For the most part, every tax vote that has come up in Congress for the past 20 or so years has gone right down party lines. Now, for the sake of the country, some Republicans are warming up to the idea of raising taxes on some people. This includes some powerful Congressmen who signed Norquist's pledge 20 years ago, such as John McCain, R-Ariz, and Lindsay Graham, R-N.C.
Now, Norquist is holding their feet to the fire, insisting that the pledge lasts forever and that they can't back away from it just because it's no longer practical or convenient. He compares the power of the pledge to the power of a mortgage or a marriage vow. (It's ludicrous that he should pick these two analogies, when homeowners are walking away from underwater mortgages and the ratio of divorces to marriages in this country exceeds 50%.) But a pledge not to raise taxes is not as sacred as a marriage vow, nor as legally binding as a mortgage commitment. And it ignores the fact that, in politics, practicality has to win out over ideology. We've had four years — actually, we've had 20 years, but the last four years are a representative sample — of a Congress ruled by ideologues, and you can see what a mess it has gotten us into.
Norquist has been in the news a lot this week, sounding like someone who's in charge of Congress. He is attempting to enforce his will through threats, blackmail, and innuendo. His tax pledge is an ideology that has blinded him to the current reality. He cannot see past the tax pledge, to what is really important for the country. He is no better than the members of the supercommittee, who couldn't see past their own positions and party platforms to work out a compromise and act in the country's collective best interests. Actually, he's worse than they were, because we didn't elect him.
Our Congresspeople should be accountable to us, the voters, not to some unelected lobbyist or to the president of a lobbying organization like Americans for Tax Reform. I didn't vote for Grover Norquist. I don't want him running the country. To grant him any measure of power in Washington is just plain wrong. We as Americans should stand up and, in one loud voice, tell Grover Norquist to "SHUT UP!"
UPDATE:
John Cassidy, of the New Yorker, apparently beat me to the punch, publishing this analysis of Norquist two days ago.
POSTSCRIPT:
While we're at it, here are some other people who should shut up and keep their power-hungry paws and their fat, padded asses out of the halls of power in Washington, D.C.:
And here are some people that we should see and hear more of in Washington. Somehow, these people come across as wise, as speaking up in behalf of the American people instead of themselves. Both the legislative and executive branches would do well to heed their advice.
POST-POSTSCRIPT:
Some of those paws are money-grubbing paws, not power-hungry paws. But the first rule of power is "Power follows money," so in my mind there's not a lot of difference between them.
Grover Norquist is the president of an organization called "Americans for Tax Reform." Twenty years ago, he started pushing newly elected Republican Congressmen (and women), or those who were running for election, to sign a pledge that they would never vote to raise taxes.
After 20 years of fiscal irresponsibility on the part of both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, our country finds itself in a difficult financial position. We need to implement our own "austerity measures" before they are dictated to us by someone else — like international banks and foreign governments. We are facing a fiscal crisis which can be resolved in several ways, most of them painful. One of the least painful ways is a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.
I didin't say it was "painless." I said it was "one of the least painful." Don't be stupid.
You will recall that, on August 2, 2011, the U.S. Congress set up a bipartisan "supercommittee" that was supposed to break through the Congressional gridlock and come up with a solution to this fiscal problem while there was still time to act. As an incentive to getting things done, Congress wrote a Plan B into the legislation, a bitter pill that the nation would have to swallow on January 2, 2013 if the supercommittee failed in their mission. This was no secret to anybody — nor was the timing of Plan B, two convenient months after a critical national election. Congress as a whole may be a pack of idiots, but they're clever idiots.
At any rate, the supercommittee proved to be as fractious and stubborn as the body which had created it, and they hit their deadline without completing their mission. So Plan B kicked in, and the automatic spending cuts and other measures that it specified will also kick in, on January 2, 2013. These automatic measures, if activated, will severely impact the still-fragile economy and could drive the country back into a recession. Some wag coined the term "fiscal cliff" to describe the country's situation, and now everybody is saying it. I'm so sick of hearing the term that I get the urge to chew my leg off every time someone says it.
Now that the election is over, the executive and legislative branches are scrambling to find a way to deactivate this time bomb before it goes off. As I said earlier, one solution involves raising taxes.
Enter Grover Norquist.
In general, Democrats have always been eager to raise taxes, and Republicans have been just as eager to cut taxes, or at least not to raise them. For the most part, every tax vote that has come up in Congress for the past 20 or so years has gone right down party lines. Now, for the sake of the country, some Republicans are warming up to the idea of raising taxes on some people. This includes some powerful Congressmen who signed Norquist's pledge 20 years ago, such as John McCain, R-Ariz, and Lindsay Graham, R-N.C.
Now, Norquist is holding their feet to the fire, insisting that the pledge lasts forever and that they can't back away from it just because it's no longer practical or convenient. He compares the power of the pledge to the power of a mortgage or a marriage vow. (It's ludicrous that he should pick these two analogies, when homeowners are walking away from underwater mortgages and the ratio of divorces to marriages in this country exceeds 50%.) But a pledge not to raise taxes is not as sacred as a marriage vow, nor as legally binding as a mortgage commitment. And it ignores the fact that, in politics, practicality has to win out over ideology. We've had four years — actually, we've had 20 years, but the last four years are a representative sample — of a Congress ruled by ideologues, and you can see what a mess it has gotten us into.
Norquist has been in the news a lot this week, sounding like someone who's in charge of Congress. He is attempting to enforce his will through threats, blackmail, and innuendo. His tax pledge is an ideology that has blinded him to the current reality. He cannot see past the tax pledge, to what is really important for the country. He is no better than the members of the supercommittee, who couldn't see past their own positions and party platforms to work out a compromise and act in the country's collective best interests. Actually, he's worse than they were, because we didn't elect him.
Our Congresspeople should be accountable to us, the voters, not to some unelected lobbyist or to the president of a lobbying organization like Americans for Tax Reform. I didn't vote for Grover Norquist. I don't want him running the country. To grant him any measure of power in Washington is just plain wrong. We as Americans should stand up and, in one loud voice, tell Grover Norquist to "SHUT UP!"
UPDATE:
John Cassidy, of the New Yorker, apparently beat me to the punch, publishing this analysis of Norquist two days ago.
POSTSCRIPT:
While we're at it, here are some other people who should shut up and keep their power-hungry paws and their fat, padded asses out of the halls of power in Washington, D.C.:
- Donald Trump
- Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton
- Bank presidents, bank lawyers, banking organizations, and lobbyists acting on behalf of banks
- Uh, the same thing, this time substituting "auto company" for "bank" and "banking"
- The same thing again, this time substituting "insurance company"
- The same thing again, this time substituting "investment firm" or "finance company"
- Any special-interest group representing a privileged minority of Americans
- Actors, musicians, sports superstars and anyone else trying to parlay their fame into power - unless they run for office and get elected
And here are some people that we should see and hear more of in Washington. Somehow, these people come across as wise, as speaking up in behalf of the American people instead of themselves. Both the legislative and executive branches would do well to heed their advice.
- Warren Buffett
- Mitt Romney, the private citizen
- Meg Whitman
- Wow, this is a frightfully short list!
POST-POSTSCRIPT:
Some of those paws are money-grubbing paws, not power-hungry paws. But the first rule of power is "Power follows money," so in my mind there's not a lot of difference between them.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
The Wrong Side Absolutely Must Not Win
One of my friends (a real one, not a FB one) saw an article on Reason.com and suggested that I read it. In today's political climate, which is at turns divisive, extremist, absolute and contrarian, the author of this article channels Jonathan Swift to warn us about something really important. The article is called The Wrong Side Absolutely Must Not Win . I'm not going to post the text of the entire article here, because I'm hoping that after November 2, nobody will need to read it again. But it's really important, right now.
Monday, August 13, 2012
A government that really works: is that too much to ask for?
Today I'm reprinting an article from ABC News. I was going to write a blog entry like this anyway, but I found this article by Amy Walter while I was doing research for my entry, and she says it so much better than I would have. Excerpting it wouldn't have done it justice.
If ABC or Ms. Walter asks me to take it down, I will, but I wanted to post a copy of it here because I've noticed that articles like this on the mainstream news outlets have a tendency to expire. They disappear after some length of time. This one deserves an extended life. It's something that all politicians need to keep in mind, both before and especially after an election. And as Ms. Walter points out, the rebuke applies to all political parties.
An Ideological Battle that Voters Don't Want
In picking Rep. Paul Ryan, whose eponymous budget plan has become synonymous with political polarization, Mitt Romney assured an ideological campaign where a debate over the role of government will be front and center. It is a debate the Obama campaign and partisans on both sides are also eager to have. But it’s not a debate that swing voters want.
They aren’t as interested in choosing whether government should be more active or less. They are more interested in simply having it work.
BLAME IT ON THE WAVE
This debate is the culmination of four consecutive wave elections — elections where each side (wrongly) assumed a mandate from the American public.
It started in 2006 when, fed up with one party control, voters tossed Congressional Republicans out of power. Once, the party of “outsider” Republicans had turned into creatures of Washington. Voters saw them as gluttonous, self-absorbed and more interested in retaining power than using their power to help the little guy.
Two years later, voters elected a president who promised to break the partisan gridlock and to focus on an agenda that transcended party and special interest groups.
Yet, elected as a counter-weight to previous GOP rule, Democrats turned out to act much like them. They passed legislation on party-line only votes. They pushed a health care law through Congress, but failed to make the case for how it was going to help people survive a flailing economy.
Fueled by this frustration, voters put Republicans back in control of the House in 2010. But like the Democrats before them, Republicans mistook the election as a mandate for their own ideology — an ideology that saw compromise as a dirty word. And, less than two years after providing the energy for the 2010 sweep of Congress, the tea party is an unpopular than ever.
Six years after voters sent a message to Republicans that they were sick and tired of a government that was polarized and self-absorbed, they find a political system that is as polarized and ineffective as ever.
Each wave election has ultimately produced a class of politicians who are convinced that their victory was about them rather than a repudiation of the tactics and behavior of the other party. They were convinced that voters were choosing an ideology, when in reality they were simply trying to punish the folks who put ideology over accomplishment and compromise.
PHILOSOPHY FOLLOWS FUNCTION
Which brings us to today. Both President Obama and Mitt Romney argue that this election provides voters with a very stark choice between two competing ideologies. One that says that government can be part of the solution (Obama) and one that says that government is getting in the way of the solution (Romney).
But there are plenty of voters out there who are more concerned about function than ideology. They aren’t spending their evenings debating the benefits of Hayek or Keynesian economic models. They are just trying to figure out which candidate is capable of getting something done. They will reward the politician who succeeds in getting things moving again. But that shouldn’t be taken as proof that voters are endorsing the philosophical underpinnings of that success.
In other words, voters are looking less at ideology and more at competency. And that’s not something that either side has been able to show that can deliver.
If ABC or Ms. Walter asks me to take it down, I will, but I wanted to post a copy of it here because I've noticed that articles like this on the mainstream news outlets have a tendency to expire. They disappear after some length of time. This one deserves an extended life. It's something that all politicians need to keep in mind, both before and especially after an election. And as Ms. Walter points out, the rebuke applies to all political parties.
An Ideological Battle that Voters Don't Want
In picking Rep. Paul Ryan, whose eponymous budget plan has become synonymous with political polarization, Mitt Romney assured an ideological campaign where a debate over the role of government will be front and center. It is a debate the Obama campaign and partisans on both sides are also eager to have. But it’s not a debate that swing voters want.
They aren’t as interested in choosing whether government should be more active or less. They are more interested in simply having it work.
BLAME IT ON THE WAVE
This debate is the culmination of four consecutive wave elections — elections where each side (wrongly) assumed a mandate from the American public.
It started in 2006 when, fed up with one party control, voters tossed Congressional Republicans out of power. Once, the party of “outsider” Republicans had turned into creatures of Washington. Voters saw them as gluttonous, self-absorbed and more interested in retaining power than using their power to help the little guy.
Two years later, voters elected a president who promised to break the partisan gridlock and to focus on an agenda that transcended party and special interest groups.
Yet, elected as a counter-weight to previous GOP rule, Democrats turned out to act much like them. They passed legislation on party-line only votes. They pushed a health care law through Congress, but failed to make the case for how it was going to help people survive a flailing economy.
Fueled by this frustration, voters put Republicans back in control of the House in 2010. But like the Democrats before them, Republicans mistook the election as a mandate for their own ideology — an ideology that saw compromise as a dirty word. And, less than two years after providing the energy for the 2010 sweep of Congress, the tea party is an unpopular than ever.
Six years after voters sent a message to Republicans that they were sick and tired of a government that was polarized and self-absorbed, they find a political system that is as polarized and ineffective as ever.
Each wave election has ultimately produced a class of politicians who are convinced that their victory was about them rather than a repudiation of the tactics and behavior of the other party. They were convinced that voters were choosing an ideology, when in reality they were simply trying to punish the folks who put ideology over accomplishment and compromise.
PHILOSOPHY FOLLOWS FUNCTION
Which brings us to today. Both President Obama and Mitt Romney argue that this election provides voters with a very stark choice between two competing ideologies. One that says that government can be part of the solution (Obama) and one that says that government is getting in the way of the solution (Romney).
But there are plenty of voters out there who are more concerned about function than ideology. They aren’t spending their evenings debating the benefits of Hayek or Keynesian economic models. They are just trying to figure out which candidate is capable of getting something done. They will reward the politician who succeeds in getting things moving again. But that shouldn’t be taken as proof that voters are endorsing the philosophical underpinnings of that success.
In other words, voters are looking less at ideology and more at competency. And that’s not something that either side has been able to show that can deliver.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Contempt of Congress
The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Boehner, is moving ahead with plans to charge U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder with "contempt of Congress", for his refusal to cooperate in the Congressional investigation into the horribly mismanaged, criminally botched, gun-running program the Justice Department was running on the Mexican border.
That's what the papers are reporting.
But hey, if you want to charge someone with "contempt of Congress," then you're going to have to charge me too. The archives of Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters show just how much contempt I have for the currently seated Congress of the United States.
In fact, if the honorable Speaker is going to charge me and AG Holder with contempt, he might have to charge 240 million other Americans with the same offense. According to the latest polls, between 75 and 79 of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job right now, and it would be fair to say that most, if not all, of those 75 to 79 percent have nothing but contempt for today's U.S. Congress.
Here is a measure of our contempt:
Dear Senators and Representatives: have you stopped being idiots yet? How's that budget coming? How about that tax code rewrite? Social Security reform? Have you stopped messing with our schools? Have you stopped catering to the banks, the insurance firms and the other too-big-to-fail companies that do more favors for you than we, the average Americans, can do for you?
Are you still blindly voting the party line? Are you still spending money that isn't yours to spend? Are you still voting to give to the military, things that the military has said they don't want, and don't need? Are you still filling the pork barrel for your state, for your constituency, even to the point of making "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" deals with your colleagues who have their own pork barrels to fill?
Have you rewritten things so that your families and fortunes are subject to the same challenges and difficulties as the rest of America, or are you and yours still exempt from so many of the rules and regulations the rest of us have to live under?
Are you still quietly voting yourselves pay raises or other emoluments that the rest of us cannot get? Especially those of us who are still without a job, even though we voted to send you to Washington?
Do you feel even the slightest twinge of guilt after reading this, or do you instead feel as much contempt for the American people as they feel for you?
That's what the papers are reporting.
But hey, if you want to charge someone with "contempt of Congress," then you're going to have to charge me too. The archives of Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters show just how much contempt I have for the currently seated Congress of the United States.
In fact, if the honorable Speaker is going to charge me and AG Holder with contempt, he might have to charge 240 million other Americans with the same offense. According to the latest polls, between 75 and 79 of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job right now, and it would be fair to say that most, if not all, of those 75 to 79 percent have nothing but contempt for today's U.S. Congress.
Here is a measure of our contempt:
Dear Senators and Representatives: have you stopped being idiots yet? How's that budget coming? How about that tax code rewrite? Social Security reform? Have you stopped messing with our schools? Have you stopped catering to the banks, the insurance firms and the other too-big-to-fail companies that do more favors for you than we, the average Americans, can do for you?
Are you still blindly voting the party line? Are you still spending money that isn't yours to spend? Are you still voting to give to the military, things that the military has said they don't want, and don't need? Are you still filling the pork barrel for your state, for your constituency, even to the point of making "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" deals with your colleagues who have their own pork barrels to fill?
Have you rewritten things so that your families and fortunes are subject to the same challenges and difficulties as the rest of America, or are you and yours still exempt from so many of the rules and regulations the rest of us have to live under?
Are you still quietly voting yourselves pay raises or other emoluments that the rest of us cannot get? Especially those of us who are still without a job, even though we voted to send you to Washington?
Do you feel even the slightest twinge of guilt after reading this, or do you instead feel as much contempt for the American people as they feel for you?
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
On Polls, Politicking, and Super PACs
About super PACs:
They're not fooling anybody, you know. They're a blatant move by the classic men-behind-the-scenes to control the political landscape and the political discourse like they used to do. They're not about free speech. They're about money and power. We all know that.
But they're frighteningly effective, and so are their tactics. Most voters in a given election will vote based on emotion, not logic or facts, and the super PACs' tactics are focused on manipulating voters' emotions.
About politicking:
You know, since we stopped subscribing to cable TV and watching network TV, we have missed all of the political ads. And when I say "missed," I mean "not seen" or "not been subject to."
When we listen to the radio, we change stations every time we hear a political ad. (In fact, we frequently change stations for any kind of advertisement.) In radio parlance, political ads are an automatic tune-out.
When we read the newspaper, we read the political ads for local issues or candidates, and then go to the Internet to find detailed, impartial facts and to read both sides of the issue.
We get most of our news today from the Internet. We read from a variety of news outlets, analysts, and opinion leaders. We assume that everybody has a bias, and so we make sure to take our news from across the political spectrum. Some of the most detached, unbiased reporting comes from overseas, from outside looking in, but even then we are careful to watch for hidden biases.
We've noticed a lot more political advertising on the Internet. We ignore all of it. (However, we are intrigued by which political ads AdSense chooses to serve up on places like Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters.)
We listen to speeches, or read transcripts of speeches, on the Internet. Sometimes we will find multiple versions of the speech. Sometimes it takes a little work to find an accurate video of the speech, unedited and uncut. We listen to some of the after-speech commentary, but not much. After 5 or 10 minutes, the commentators go into talking-head mode, and then it's time to move on.
About polls:
I used to participate in telephone polls and surveys, thinking that I was fulfilling my civic duty in making my voice heard. Boy, was I mistaken. It took me a while, but I finally caught on to the fact that a "poll" is not really a "poll": the pollster is pushing a specific agenda, and is politicking (or selling, if it's a consumer poll and not a voter poll) just like everybody else.
Caller ID is a wonderful thing. During election season (like, right now), we ignore incoming calls if we don't recognize the calling number, or if no number is shown. There's no law that requires you to answer a ringing telephone.
That short pause before the human starts talking is also a wonderful thing. One day autodialers will be fast enough to eliminate the pause, but for 2012, that brief time while the autodialer processes our "Hello?" and routes us to a human or to a recorded message, is just enough time to alert us to the fact that it's a call we can safely hang up on.
This year I'm going to try something new. If I answer a ringing telephone and I don't realize it's a political call until the caller starts talking, I'm going to abruptly and wordlessly hang up. It may be rude, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to listen to them, any more than I have the time or inclination to listen to a door-to-door salesman.
To wrap up:
Politicians must hate voters like us. We think about the candidates, and the issues. We do our research. We look at all sides of the story. We judge the credibility of everything we hear or read, and we ignore emotional appeals. And we hate buzzwords, slogans, and cute catchphrases, with a hatred that surpasses all understanding. We don't vote a strict party or ideological line, although we prefer moderates over radicals because we know they will get things done and not just crow like a rooster all day long. We vote for what we think will be best in the long run for our community, our state and our country.
They're not fooling anybody, you know. They're a blatant move by the classic men-behind-the-scenes to control the political landscape and the political discourse like they used to do. They're not about free speech. They're about money and power. We all know that.
But they're frighteningly effective, and so are their tactics. Most voters in a given election will vote based on emotion, not logic or facts, and the super PACs' tactics are focused on manipulating voters' emotions.
About politicking:
You know, since we stopped subscribing to cable TV and watching network TV, we have missed all of the political ads. And when I say "missed," I mean "not seen" or "not been subject to."
When we listen to the radio, we change stations every time we hear a political ad. (In fact, we frequently change stations for any kind of advertisement.) In radio parlance, political ads are an automatic tune-out.
When we read the newspaper, we read the political ads for local issues or candidates, and then go to the Internet to find detailed, impartial facts and to read both sides of the issue.
We get most of our news today from the Internet. We read from a variety of news outlets, analysts, and opinion leaders. We assume that everybody has a bias, and so we make sure to take our news from across the political spectrum. Some of the most detached, unbiased reporting comes from overseas, from outside looking in, but even then we are careful to watch for hidden biases.
We've noticed a lot more political advertising on the Internet. We ignore all of it. (However, we are intrigued by which political ads AdSense chooses to serve up on places like Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters.)
We listen to speeches, or read transcripts of speeches, on the Internet. Sometimes we will find multiple versions of the speech. Sometimes it takes a little work to find an accurate video of the speech, unedited and uncut. We listen to some of the after-speech commentary, but not much. After 5 or 10 minutes, the commentators go into talking-head mode, and then it's time to move on.
About polls:
I used to participate in telephone polls and surveys, thinking that I was fulfilling my civic duty in making my voice heard. Boy, was I mistaken. It took me a while, but I finally caught on to the fact that a "poll" is not really a "poll": the pollster is pushing a specific agenda, and is politicking (or selling, if it's a consumer poll and not a voter poll) just like everybody else.
Caller ID is a wonderful thing. During election season (like, right now), we ignore incoming calls if we don't recognize the calling number, or if no number is shown. There's no law that requires you to answer a ringing telephone.
That short pause before the human starts talking is also a wonderful thing. One day autodialers will be fast enough to eliminate the pause, but for 2012, that brief time while the autodialer processes our "Hello?" and routes us to a human or to a recorded message, is just enough time to alert us to the fact that it's a call we can safely hang up on.
This year I'm going to try something new. If I answer a ringing telephone and I don't realize it's a political call until the caller starts talking, I'm going to abruptly and wordlessly hang up. It may be rude, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to listen to them, any more than I have the time or inclination to listen to a door-to-door salesman.
To wrap up:
Politicians must hate voters like us. We think about the candidates, and the issues. We do our research. We look at all sides of the story. We judge the credibility of everything we hear or read, and we ignore emotional appeals. And we hate buzzwords, slogans, and cute catchphrases, with a hatred that surpasses all understanding. We don't vote a strict party or ideological line, although we prefer moderates over radicals because we know they will get things done and not just crow like a rooster all day long. We vote for what we think will be best in the long run for our community, our state and our country.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Dear Congressman: The Whole World is Watching, and They Know You're Going to Fail
I sat down this morning to write an article about the next budgetary challenge facing the Congress of the United States. Once again, they have the chance to prove how fiscally irresponsible, and politically hopeless, they are. The Supercommittee's first deadline, November 23, is only three weeks away, but five days before that, the Congress has to pass the 2012 budget. You and I both know how that's going to turn out, right?
Anyway, I was going to give you an analysis of the situation, when I ran across an article online. The article appeared on yahoo.com, and it was written by Jay Newton-Small, of Time.com. Jay says exactly what I was going to say - even with my voice, right down to the "You gotta love" near the end. It's as if I discovered a kindred spirit. If I get the author's approval, I'll reprint the whole article here. For now, here's the link to the article.
As Congress Squabbles, Another Shutdown Looms
Read and enjoy.
Anyway, I was going to give you an analysis of the situation, when I ran across an article online. The article appeared on yahoo.com, and it was written by Jay Newton-Small, of Time.com. Jay says exactly what I was going to say - even with my voice, right down to the "You gotta love" near the end. It's as if I discovered a kindred spirit. If I get the author's approval, I'll reprint the whole article here. For now, here's the link to the article.
As Congress Squabbles, Another Shutdown Looms
Read and enjoy.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
FEMA does Congress' job for them, this time
That emergency budget bill finally passed. Here's how it all came out. The emergency budget bill got stuck in the Senate, where it was trapped by more politicking and grandstanding. Read some of the outrageous stuff the Senators were saying, at Yahoo! News.
If that article, and others on CNN and other websites, are accurate, then it looks like nobody standing at the podium in the Senate chamber cared one way or the other about the looming government shutdown, or the disaster victims in the northeastern U.S. They only cared about winning. In their eyes, this budget bill had nothing to do with the good of the country or the fate of the disaster victims. It had everything to do with political power - winning and losing.
Nobody was going to compromise on this. The elected officials only wanted to engage in posturing, stonewalling, and name-calling. It was Business As Usual.
And what hung in the balance, other than the poor lady in Vermont whose house was nothing but a naked frame with the wind blowing through, was funding to keep the Federal Emergency Management Agency running. If this bill didn't pass, the federal government would shut down, including FEMA - and that lady in Vermont was depending on FEMA to help her.
(We can save for another time the debate on the merits of FEMA, or whether hurricane and earthquake victims should depend on federal agencies to help them recover. That's peripheral to the crisis happening in Washington DC right now.)
Once more, to make it clear: the fiscal year ends on September 30. The problem was that FEMA would run out of funds before the end of the fiscal year, and this budget bill was an emergency bill to keep FEMA, and other agencies, running until then. You may think it's only 3 days, but a lot of money passes through Washington's hands in 3 days. If the U.S. government shuts down for one day, that's a big enough problem.
In the end, a compromise was reached. It wasn't the Democrats. It wasn't the Republicans. It wasn't the Senate. It wasn't the House of Representatives.
It was FEMA.
FEMA, not wanting to shut down (obviously), had a look at their accounts and figured out a way they could legally shuffle things so that they could make it through Friday. Once they figured it out, they told the Senate leaders, who must have looked a bit confused and said, "Oh, okay then." Shortly afterwards, the Senate voted 79-12 to approve it. Now, according to Yahoo, it goes back to the House for a final rubber stamp. Let's hope they can manage that.
Just so you know where I stand on this: Our elected legislators in Washington DC have proven for the third time this year that when the chips are down, they can't legislate their way out of a wet paper bag. If they can't complete a task this (relatively) simple, we cannot depend on them to achieve anything really, seriously important. This Congress is totally dysfunctional, and anything they try to do is doomed to failure.
If that article, and others on CNN and other websites, are accurate, then it looks like nobody standing at the podium in the Senate chamber cared one way or the other about the looming government shutdown, or the disaster victims in the northeastern U.S. They only cared about winning. In their eyes, this budget bill had nothing to do with the good of the country or the fate of the disaster victims. It had everything to do with political power - winning and losing.
Nobody was going to compromise on this. The elected officials only wanted to engage in posturing, stonewalling, and name-calling. It was Business As Usual.
And what hung in the balance, other than the poor lady in Vermont whose house was nothing but a naked frame with the wind blowing through, was funding to keep the Federal Emergency Management Agency running. If this bill didn't pass, the federal government would shut down, including FEMA - and that lady in Vermont was depending on FEMA to help her.
(We can save for another time the debate on the merits of FEMA, or whether hurricane and earthquake victims should depend on federal agencies to help them recover. That's peripheral to the crisis happening in Washington DC right now.)
Once more, to make it clear: the fiscal year ends on September 30. The problem was that FEMA would run out of funds before the end of the fiscal year, and this budget bill was an emergency bill to keep FEMA, and other agencies, running until then. You may think it's only 3 days, but a lot of money passes through Washington's hands in 3 days. If the U.S. government shuts down for one day, that's a big enough problem.
In the end, a compromise was reached. It wasn't the Democrats. It wasn't the Republicans. It wasn't the Senate. It wasn't the House of Representatives.
It was FEMA.
FEMA, not wanting to shut down (obviously), had a look at their accounts and figured out a way they could legally shuffle things so that they could make it through Friday. Once they figured it out, they told the Senate leaders, who must have looked a bit confused and said, "Oh, okay then." Shortly afterwards, the Senate voted 79-12 to approve it. Now, according to Yahoo, it goes back to the House for a final rubber stamp. Let's hope they can manage that.
Just so you know where I stand on this: Our elected legislators in Washington DC have proven for the third time this year that when the chips are down, they can't legislate their way out of a wet paper bag. If they can't complete a task this (relatively) simple, we cannot depend on them to achieve anything really, seriously important. This Congress is totally dysfunctional, and anything they try to do is doomed to failure.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Dear Congressman: It's official. You really are IDIOTS.
To all the members of the Congress of the United States:
Actually, "idiot" is the best G-rated word I can think of to describe all 535 of you right now.
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted that all 435 of its members are idiots.
On Friday, the Senate followed up with their own vote, confirming that all 100 of its members are idiots.
I can't believe we entrusted you with this one, simple thing, and you couldn't deliver. You had the chance to compromise, to truly work together to make something happen.
And you chose words over deeds. You chose to do nothing. Instead, you're going to tell us why you did nothing. Well, We The People are sick to the point of nausea of hearing you talk, of reading your words, of seeing you in front of a microphone or a television camera. We just want you to shut up and do something, for a change.
Do you not understand what is at stake here? Lemme quote Yahoo! News to you:
Actually, "idiot" is the best G-rated word I can think of to describe all 535 of you right now.
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted that all 435 of its members are idiots.
On Friday, the Senate followed up with their own vote, confirming that all 100 of its members are idiots.
I can't believe we entrusted you with this one, simple thing, and you couldn't deliver. You had the chance to compromise, to truly work together to make something happen.
And you chose words over deeds. You chose to do nothing. Instead, you're going to tell us why you did nothing. Well, We The People are sick to the point of nausea of hearing you talk, of reading your words, of seeing you in front of a microphone or a television camera. We just want you to shut up and do something, for a change.
Do you not understand what is at stake here? Lemme quote Yahoo! News to you:
The dispute throws into question lawmakers' ability to find common ground on the more painful choices they will have to confront in the coming months as a special bipartisan committee searches for trillions of dollars in budget savings.Now do you get it? We don't think you can do it. You don't have what it takes to do it. You are SO fired, you incompetent bunch of chimpanzees.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Dear Congressman: You did it again! Good grief, how stupid ARE you?
To all members of the Congress of the United States:
On Wednesday, September 21, the House of Representatives voted that all 435 of its members are idiots. We're waiting to see if the Senate comes up with something similar.
Once again, a serious deadline looms: the federal government will be out of money - operating funds, that is - on October 1, little more than a week from now. Another emergency budget bill was presented for a vote in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. Forty-eight Tea Party Republicans voted against the bill because it didn't cut taxes. (That's not what it was intended to do! Idiots!) Almost all Democrats voted against the bill because it didn't spend enough money. (Haven't you learned? That's the last thing we need to be doing right now: spending more money. How do you think we got into this problem in the first place? Idiots!)
And you, the empty-headed, drooling, mouth-breathing, slope-headed, beetle-browed, lawyers and millionaires, whom We The People naively elected to "represent" us in the Congress of the United States, you are back to Business as Usual.
Party politics. Brinksmanship. Obstructionism. Ultimatums. Tantrums. Narrowmindedness. Selling of favors. Catering to special interests. Everything except the cooperation and compromise that we expect of you. Didn't you MORONS learn ANYTHING from the debt-ceiling debacle?
It was a simple thing! All you had to do was pass a bill! You couldn't even do that!
Once again, you are going to wait until just before midnight on September 30 to do something that you are perfectly capable of doing right now, because you're too stubborn, too immature, and too fond of power.
Listen to me carefully. I want you to remember these words. The American people have lost all confidence in their Senators and their Representatives. (This time, it's the Representatives' fault. Senators, I'm sure your turn is coming.) This November, and in the next five Novembers, We The People are going to show you what you can do with that power which you think you possess. We are going to kick all of you out of Washington, D.C. and send you back home, where you won't cause any more trouble. We will replace you with people who know what it's like to try to survive and keep a family together in these times, who know how to get something done.
You obviously don't know, and you apparently don't care. And for that reason alone, you are unworthy to hold office. You're all fired.
UPDATE, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23: The House of Representatives stayed up past midnight, and finally got a version of the bill passed. The vote went right down party lines, revealing that, even though they were able to pass the bill, all 435 members of the House of Representatives are still idiots. Stupid. Morons. Mental disasters. Buck-toothed jackasses, braying and kicking and blocking the trail.
The bill does contain a compromise: $1 billion of a requested $3.6 billion spending increase for disaster aid now, and another $2.6 billion in fiscal year 2012, which starts October 1. See, that wasn't so hard, was it? And they even threw in some spending cuts to appease the Tea Partiers.
Today, the bill goes to the Senate, where the Senate is expected to vote to reject it. As in the House, the vote will go right down party lines. Like I said at the beginning of this post, today the United States Senate is going to vote that all 100 of its members are flaming idiots, just like their counterparts down the hall. Here's why. An unnamed aide to a Democratic Senator gives this hypocritical, two-faced, self-serving comment in a CNN article:
Once again, to all members of the Congress of the United States: Today, the Senate will vote on whether or not you are idiots. And the money's riding on a "yes" vote.
With the screeching sound of the Eurozone crashing and burning in the background, the whole world is watching you, the Congress of the United States. Nobody is watching Europe. They're all focused on Washington, and wondering whether a nation so gridlocked, and so mismanaged, can long endure.
On Wednesday, September 21, the House of Representatives voted that all 435 of its members are idiots. We're waiting to see if the Senate comes up with something similar.
Once again, a serious deadline looms: the federal government will be out of money - operating funds, that is - on October 1, little more than a week from now. Another emergency budget bill was presented for a vote in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. Forty-eight Tea Party Republicans voted against the bill because it didn't cut taxes. (That's not what it was intended to do! Idiots!) Almost all Democrats voted against the bill because it didn't spend enough money. (Haven't you learned? That's the last thing we need to be doing right now: spending more money. How do you think we got into this problem in the first place? Idiots!)
And you, the empty-headed, drooling, mouth-breathing, slope-headed, beetle-browed, lawyers and millionaires, whom We The People naively elected to "represent" us in the Congress of the United States, you are back to Business as Usual.
Party politics. Brinksmanship. Obstructionism. Ultimatums. Tantrums. Narrowmindedness. Selling of favors. Catering to special interests. Everything except the cooperation and compromise that we expect of you. Didn't you MORONS learn ANYTHING from the debt-ceiling debacle?
It was a simple thing! All you had to do was pass a bill! You couldn't even do that!
Once again, you are going to wait until just before midnight on September 30 to do something that you are perfectly capable of doing right now, because you're too stubborn, too immature, and too fond of power.
Listen to me carefully. I want you to remember these words. The American people have lost all confidence in their Senators and their Representatives. (This time, it's the Representatives' fault. Senators, I'm sure your turn is coming.) This November, and in the next five Novembers, We The People are going to show you what you can do with that power which you think you possess. We are going to kick all of you out of Washington, D.C. and send you back home, where you won't cause any more trouble. We will replace you with people who know what it's like to try to survive and keep a family together in these times, who know how to get something done.
You obviously don't know, and you apparently don't care. And for that reason alone, you are unworthy to hold office. You're all fired.
UPDATE, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23: The House of Representatives stayed up past midnight, and finally got a version of the bill passed. The vote went right down party lines, revealing that, even though they were able to pass the bill, all 435 members of the House of Representatives are still idiots. Stupid. Morons. Mental disasters. Buck-toothed jackasses, braying and kicking and blocking the trail.
The bill does contain a compromise: $1 billion of a requested $3.6 billion spending increase for disaster aid now, and another $2.6 billion in fiscal year 2012, which starts October 1. See, that wasn't so hard, was it? And they even threw in some spending cuts to appease the Tea Partiers.
Today, the bill goes to the Senate, where the Senate is expected to vote to reject it. As in the House, the vote will go right down party lines. Like I said at the beginning of this post, today the United States Senate is going to vote that all 100 of its members are flaming idiots, just like their counterparts down the hall. Here's why. An unnamed aide to a Democratic Senator gives this hypocritical, two-faced, self-serving comment in a CNN article:
On Thursday night, senior Senate Democratic leadership aide said the party's caucus is united against Republican-tailored versions of the measure. "We are looking for a real attempt to compromise, not just an attempt to appease their own people," the aide said.Nobody in the Senate - on either side of the aisle - is interested in compromise, as they have made clear. For either party to suggest that they are is an insult to the intelligence of the American people. This is a do-nothing Congress. All they can do is talk and talk, and they do way too much of that. We The People want deeds, not words.
Once again, to all members of the Congress of the United States: Today, the Senate will vote on whether or not you are idiots. And the money's riding on a "yes" vote.
With the screeching sound of the Eurozone crashing and burning in the background, the whole world is watching you, the Congress of the United States. Nobody is watching Europe. They're all focused on Washington, and wondering whether a nation so gridlocked, and so mismanaged, can long endure.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Everything You Need to Know About the Debt Supercommittee
As part of the last-minute compromise on August 2 that resolved the debt-limit crisis, Congress set up a 12-person Super Committee. Officially called the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction,this committee was charged with coming up with a permanent fix for the budget and deficit problems facing the country and threatening the still-shaky economic recovery.
The idea that this Super Committee might come up with a "permanent" solution reminds me of some "permanent" solutions to other wide-ranging problems from the very early 20th century:
I can think of so many ways that the Super Committee idea will fail. All of them have to do with the inability of our elected officials to set aside their own agendas, ignore the Special Interests, be willing to compromise, work together for the common good, and act with foresight, courage and maturity. And if it does fail, the nation will be plunged into another economic crisis, and members of the Super Committee and Congress at large will stand around, pointing their fingers and blaming everyone but themselves for the failure.
In this article, I will give you the names of the twelve members of the Super Committee, and the timetable for the Super Committee and Congress. This is public information. I copied it from the National Journal and the Christian Science Monitor.
Members of the Super Committee
Timetable for the Super Committee
In a nutshell, the Super Committee has to come up with a plan for cutting the national debt by $1.5 trillion over x years. They have to present the formal, approved-by-all-twelve-members, plan to Congress by November 23. The House and Senate both have to vote to approve the plan by December 23. (I guess President Obama has to sign it into law by then, too.) If this doesn't happen, then the automatic spending cuts written into the August 2 compromise swing into action, much to the consternation of American citizens, other national governments, and banks worldwide.
Here are the details. You know who lives in the details!
Sept. 8: The committee holds its first organizational meeting; on the agenda will be setting the rules.
Sept. 13: First public hearing, which will include testimony on "The History and Drivers of Our Nation's Debt and Its Threats" from Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf.
Sept. 22: Deadline for Congress to consider a resolution of disapproval for first $900 billion tranche of debt limit increase.
Oct. 1-Dec. 31: Timeframe in which both houses of Congress must vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment.
Oct. 14: House and Senate committees must submit recommendations to the committee by this date.
Nov. 23: Deadline for the committee to vote on a plan with $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction.
Dec. 2: Deadline for the committee to submit report and legislative language to the president and Congress.
Dec. 23: Deadline for both houses to vote on the committee bill.
Jan. 15, 2012: Date that the “trigger” leading to $1.2 trillion of future spending cuts goes into effect, if the committee’s legislation has not been enacted.
February 2012: Approximate time when the first $900 billion of debt ceiling increase runs out.
February/March 2012: During this period, 15 days after the president uses his authority in the bill to increase the debt ceiling a second time, is the deadline for Congress to consider a resolution of disapproval for the second tranche ($1.2-$1.5 trillion) of debt limit increase.
Fall/Winter 2012: The additional $2.1-$2.4 trillion of borrowing authority from this law runs out.
Jan. 2, 2013: OMB orders sequestrations for defense and non-defense categories of spending necessary to meet spending cuts required by the “trigger."
Good luck to all of us
Like the great-aunt who throws rice on the bride and groom and wishes them well, then turns around and mutters, "They'll be divorced in less than a year," I wish the Super Committee all the success in the world, but I expect them to fail miserably. I'd love to be proven wrong on this.
A note on Kerry "lobbying hard" to get on the Super Committee: I wouldn't be surprised if all twelve of them (and others who didn't get nominated) aspired, and pushed hard, to get onto this committee. However, I don't believe that anybody who did so, did so for primarily altruistic or patriotic reasons. I'd love to be proven wrong on this, too.
The idea that this Super Committee might come up with a "permanent" solution reminds me of some "permanent" solutions to other wide-ranging problems from the very early 20th century:
- World War I, the "war to end all wars."
- The League of Nations. (And its successor, the United Nations.)
I can think of so many ways that the Super Committee idea will fail. All of them have to do with the inability of our elected officials to set aside their own agendas, ignore the Special Interests, be willing to compromise, work together for the common good, and act with foresight, courage and maturity. And if it does fail, the nation will be plunged into another economic crisis, and members of the Super Committee and Congress at large will stand around, pointing their fingers and blaming everyone but themselves for the failure.
In this article, I will give you the names of the twelve members of the Super Committee, and the timetable for the Super Committee and Congress. This is public information. I copied it from the National Journal and the Christian Science Monitor.
Members of the Super Committee
- Sen. Max Baucus (D) of Montana - chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which handles Medicare and tax policy.
- Rep. Xavier Becerra (D) of California -vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus and senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee. He voted against the August 2 debt-limit compromise.
- Rep. Dave Camp (R) of Michigan - member of the House Ways and Means Committee. He has a reputation as a moderate who is skilled at "working both sides of the aisle."
- Rep. James Clyburn (D) of South Carolina -member of the House Appropriations Committee and No. 3 in the House Democratic Caucus.
- Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R) of Texas - appointed as co-chair of the Super Committee. A "true-blue conservative" who is not known for any ability to compromise, or to work effectively with non-conservatives. To his credit, he broke with the Republicans and didn't buy into the "too big to fail" argument during the bail-out talks of the recent Great Recession.
- Sen. John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts - former presidential candidate, former chair of the Small Business Committee, current chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Rumor has it that he lobbied hard to get appointed to the Super Committee.
- Sen. Jon Kyl (R) of Arizona - Senate Republican whip and member of the Senate Finance Committee. He retires at the end of this term, so while he may be doing this to pad his résumé, he's not doing it to consolidate his power in the Senate. He may actually help the Super Committee do something useful.
- Sen. Patty Murray (D) of Washington - appointed as co-chair of the Super Committee. Chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. She probably got on the Super Committeeat least in part because she is trusted by Senate majority leader Harry Reid.
- Sen. Rob Portman (R) of Ohio - former Representative (for 12 years) and former member of the House Ways and Means Committee, this is his first term as Senator.
- Sen. Patrick Toomey (R) of Pennsylvania - also a former Representative (for 6 years) and freshman Senator. Sen. Toomey has a refreshingly independent voting record: he has voted with Democrats at times, and against his own party and the Tea Party at times, and he worked with a Democratic Senator to ban earmarks in spending bills.
- Rep. Fred Upton (R) of Michigan - chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, with a reputation as a "moderate conservative." He is suspected of planning to use his position on the Super Committee to further his agenda of weakening environmental protections and taking the teeth out of the Environmental Protection Agency.
- Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D) of Maryland - member of the House Budget Committee.
Timetable for the Super Committee
In a nutshell, the Super Committee has to come up with a plan for cutting the national debt by $1.5 trillion over x years. They have to present the formal, approved-by-all-twelve-members, plan to Congress by November 23. The House and Senate both have to vote to approve the plan by December 23. (I guess President Obama has to sign it into law by then, too.) If this doesn't happen, then the automatic spending cuts written into the August 2 compromise swing into action, much to the consternation of American citizens, other national governments, and banks worldwide.
Here are the details. You know who lives in the details!
Sept. 8: The committee holds its first organizational meeting; on the agenda will be setting the rules.
Sept. 13: First public hearing, which will include testimony on "The History and Drivers of Our Nation's Debt and Its Threats" from Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf.
Sept. 22: Deadline for Congress to consider a resolution of disapproval for first $900 billion tranche of debt limit increase.
Oct. 1-Dec. 31: Timeframe in which both houses of Congress must vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment.
Oct. 14: House and Senate committees must submit recommendations to the committee by this date.
Nov. 23: Deadline for the committee to vote on a plan with $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction.
Dec. 2: Deadline for the committee to submit report and legislative language to the president and Congress.
Dec. 23: Deadline for both houses to vote on the committee bill.
Jan. 15, 2012: Date that the “trigger” leading to $1.2 trillion of future spending cuts goes into effect, if the committee’s legislation has not been enacted.
February 2012: Approximate time when the first $900 billion of debt ceiling increase runs out.
February/March 2012: During this period, 15 days after the president uses his authority in the bill to increase the debt ceiling a second time, is the deadline for Congress to consider a resolution of disapproval for the second tranche ($1.2-$1.5 trillion) of debt limit increase.
Fall/Winter 2012: The additional $2.1-$2.4 trillion of borrowing authority from this law runs out.
Jan. 2, 2013: OMB orders sequestrations for defense and non-defense categories of spending necessary to meet spending cuts required by the “trigger."
Good luck to all of us
Like the great-aunt who throws rice on the bride and groom and wishes them well, then turns around and mutters, "They'll be divorced in less than a year," I wish the Super Committee all the success in the world, but I expect them to fail miserably. I'd love to be proven wrong on this.
A note on Kerry "lobbying hard" to get on the Super Committee: I wouldn't be surprised if all twelve of them (and others who didn't get nominated) aspired, and pushed hard, to get onto this committee. However, I don't believe that anybody who did so, did so for primarily altruistic or patriotic reasons. I'd love to be proven wrong on this, too.
Dear Congressman: Grow up, already
To all the members of the Congress of the United States:
You haven't learned a single thing.
The compromise upon which you settled, in order to bring an end to the debt-limit crisis and avert a larger crisis, was admirable. We must give you credit for that. But the acrimony, the stubbornness, and the brinksmanship which preceded the compromise were deplorable and childish.
Or, in more common language, your behavior sucks. Your attitude sucks. You're acting like a bunch of little babies. If I were a private businessman, I would never hire someone like you to work for me. If I did, you would alienate all of my customers. My suppliers would refuse to do business with me, and my best employees would resign, all because of you. You would ruin my business.
Immediately after the compromise became law, you ran out of town en masse for your summer break - leaving undone all sorts of important tasks that had been repeatedly deferred because of your STUPID arguing over the debt limit. The most visible of these undone tasks was the FAA funding bill that needed closure, in order to pay air traffic controllers, repair many of the nation's runways, and generally keep air travel safe.
Once again, if you were a salaried employee at my business, I would fire you for such immature behavior. Even teenage burger flippers are more responsible than that. And we pay you, as senators and representatives, to get the important stuff done, not to punch a time clock. Hourly employees punch the time clock; salaried employees stay until the job is done. Do you not understand that?
If you don't understand that, then you've lived in Washington for too long. It's time for you to come home permanently, and not just for the summer.
Now, traditionally, on summer break, you meet with your constituents back home. This year, many of you are breaking with tradition and hiding from your constituents. The number of so-called "town hall" meetings you are holding has been sharply curtailed, and many of these meetings have been replaced with invitation-only events, or events which carry an admission charge, or carefully scripted and fiercely moderated Internet events. These events allow you (or your handlers) to control who has access to you, and what they're allowed to say to you.
In a way, I can understand the change. On CNN and other television news outlets, we've seen video of town hall meetings and other face-to-face events in 2011, which have been hijacked by organized groups and used to promote their own narrow agendas. Don't worry about those people. Let them hijack the events. The rest of us won't put up with it for long, and we'll use the power of We The People to shut down those disruptors. But for you to attempt to hide from your constituents, and to surround yourselves with fans and sycophants, is cowardly and immature. When we elected you, we thought you had more courage than that.
We can still vote you out of office. And believe me, we will. I'm surprised that none of you have faced a recall vote yet - my guess is that the inertia of the American voter is temporarily saving some of your hides. But in November 2012, We The People will definitely make our voices heard.
And don't tell us you didn't see it coming.
You haven't learned a single thing.
The compromise upon which you settled, in order to bring an end to the debt-limit crisis and avert a larger crisis, was admirable. We must give you credit for that. But the acrimony, the stubbornness, and the brinksmanship which preceded the compromise were deplorable and childish.
Or, in more common language, your behavior sucks. Your attitude sucks. You're acting like a bunch of little babies. If I were a private businessman, I would never hire someone like you to work for me. If I did, you would alienate all of my customers. My suppliers would refuse to do business with me, and my best employees would resign, all because of you. You would ruin my business.
Immediately after the compromise became law, you ran out of town en masse for your summer break - leaving undone all sorts of important tasks that had been repeatedly deferred because of your STUPID arguing over the debt limit. The most visible of these undone tasks was the FAA funding bill that needed closure, in order to pay air traffic controllers, repair many of the nation's runways, and generally keep air travel safe.
Once again, if you were a salaried employee at my business, I would fire you for such immature behavior. Even teenage burger flippers are more responsible than that. And we pay you, as senators and representatives, to get the important stuff done, not to punch a time clock. Hourly employees punch the time clock; salaried employees stay until the job is done. Do you not understand that?
If you don't understand that, then you've lived in Washington for too long. It's time for you to come home permanently, and not just for the summer.
Now, traditionally, on summer break, you meet with your constituents back home. This year, many of you are breaking with tradition and hiding from your constituents. The number of so-called "town hall" meetings you are holding has been sharply curtailed, and many of these meetings have been replaced with invitation-only events, or events which carry an admission charge, or carefully scripted and fiercely moderated Internet events. These events allow you (or your handlers) to control who has access to you, and what they're allowed to say to you.
In a way, I can understand the change. On CNN and other television news outlets, we've seen video of town hall meetings and other face-to-face events in 2011, which have been hijacked by organized groups and used to promote their own narrow agendas. Don't worry about those people. Let them hijack the events. The rest of us won't put up with it for long, and we'll use the power of We The People to shut down those disruptors. But for you to attempt to hide from your constituents, and to surround yourselves with fans and sycophants, is cowardly and immature. When we elected you, we thought you had more courage than that.
We can still vote you out of office. And believe me, we will. I'm surprised that none of you have faced a recall vote yet - my guess is that the inertia of the American voter is temporarily saving some of your hides. But in November 2012, We The People will definitely make our voices heard.
And don't tell us you didn't see it coming.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Dear Congressman: you can still be fired, you know
To all of the members of the Congress of the United States:
Remember when I told you, on behalf of millions of fed-up Americans, that if you did not resolve this debt-limit crisis by the deadline, we would fire you? Well, you're not out of the woods yet.
The President and key Congressional leaders have hammered out a compromise solution to the crisis. Nobody is happy with it, but everybody can live with it. Our recommendation, the recommendation of WE THE PEOPLE, is that ALL OF YOU ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES approve the solution. Vote for it. Pass it.
It's a real shame that you had to wait until you heard the rumblings of the granite pillars on Wall Street, as the still-fragile US economy threatened to come crashing down again, before you finally got serious about this. You know, you can give all the speeches and press conferences and interviews that you want; you can talk and talk and talk because that seems to be THE ONLY THING YOU ARE ANY GOOD AT, but all that talk doesn't solve the nation's problems - and frankly, we're tired of hearing you talk.
I listened to an interview with a member of Congress on NPR this morning, and all this politician wanted to do was talk. He didn't want to answer the interviewer's questions, and he didn't want to report on how he was participating in resolving this crisis. He just wanted to talk. He wanted to make sure we all heard his side of the story. I just wanted him to SHUT UP AND GET TO WORK.
And that's why we elected you all in the first place. Shut up, roll up your sleeves, get to work, and fix things. That's what WE THE PEOPLE are doing, and you shouldn't be any different.
Oh, one more thing, in case you missed it: we, the people of the United States, are serious about this. And we're seriously pissed. At you.
Remember when I told you, on behalf of millions of fed-up Americans, that if you did not resolve this debt-limit crisis by the deadline, we would fire you? Well, you're not out of the woods yet.
The President and key Congressional leaders have hammered out a compromise solution to the crisis. Nobody is happy with it, but everybody can live with it. Our recommendation, the recommendation of WE THE PEOPLE, is that ALL OF YOU ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES approve the solution. Vote for it. Pass it.
It's a real shame that you had to wait until you heard the rumblings of the granite pillars on Wall Street, as the still-fragile US economy threatened to come crashing down again, before you finally got serious about this. You know, you can give all the speeches and press conferences and interviews that you want; you can talk and talk and talk because that seems to be THE ONLY THING YOU ARE ANY GOOD AT, but all that talk doesn't solve the nation's problems - and frankly, we're tired of hearing you talk.
I listened to an interview with a member of Congress on NPR this morning, and all this politician wanted to do was talk. He didn't want to answer the interviewer's questions, and he didn't want to report on how he was participating in resolving this crisis. He just wanted to talk. He wanted to make sure we all heard his side of the story. I just wanted him to SHUT UP AND GET TO WORK.
And that's why we elected you all in the first place. Shut up, roll up your sleeves, get to work, and fix things. That's what WE THE PEOPLE are doing, and you shouldn't be any different.
Oh, one more thing, in case you missed it: we, the people of the United States, are serious about this. And we're seriously pissed. At you.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Dear Congressman: get this done, or you're fired
To all of the members of the Congress of the United States:
I will make this simple. I speak for millions of Americans when I say this. Please listen carefully. Your jobs depend on it.
We are sick and tired of watching all the posturing and politicking that is going on in Washington right now. Your playing around with this debt-ceiling issue has to stop. You must put aside your party affiliations and your power-grabbing maneuvering. If you cannot do this one thing - that is, work TOGETHER to resolve this issue - then NONE OF YOU DESERVE TO HOLD your current jobs.
And we, the people, WE WILL FIRE YOU. We will elect a completely new slate of Senators and Representatives, a group who can and will work together for the common good, who know when it is time to set aside their differences and come up with solutions to complex problems, solutions that ultimately will benefit their constituents and the country as a whole.
If you were in private industry, you would have been thrown out on your asses long ago. Private enterprise would never stand for your stubbornness, your grandstanding, your ultimatums and your refusal to cooperate with each other.
Get it?
If you can't do this one thing, then you are a pathetic waste of taxpayer dollars, no matter how many other noble deeds you have done while in office. Ordinary Americans' livelihoods, not to mention the national economy, hang in the balance here, and you're farting around playing politics.
None of us want to hear your excuses. And don't bother blaming it on the other guys. We want deeds, not words. Get it done, or get out of the way so somebody else can get it done.
I will make this simple. I speak for millions of Americans when I say this. Please listen carefully. Your jobs depend on it.
We are sick and tired of watching all the posturing and politicking that is going on in Washington right now. Your playing around with this debt-ceiling issue has to stop. You must put aside your party affiliations and your power-grabbing maneuvering. If you cannot do this one thing - that is, work TOGETHER to resolve this issue - then NONE OF YOU DESERVE TO HOLD your current jobs.
And we, the people, WE WILL FIRE YOU. We will elect a completely new slate of Senators and Representatives, a group who can and will work together for the common good, who know when it is time to set aside their differences and come up with solutions to complex problems, solutions that ultimately will benefit their constituents and the country as a whole.
If you were in private industry, you would have been thrown out on your asses long ago. Private enterprise would never stand for your stubbornness, your grandstanding, your ultimatums and your refusal to cooperate with each other.
Get it?
If you can't do this one thing, then you are a pathetic waste of taxpayer dollars, no matter how many other noble deeds you have done while in office. Ordinary Americans' livelihoods, not to mention the national economy, hang in the balance here, and you're farting around playing politics.
None of us want to hear your excuses. And don't bother blaming it on the other guys. We want deeds, not words. Get it done, or get out of the way so somebody else can get it done.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Bonuses
I sent this letter to my senators, my representative, and the prez. My Canadian friends can translate that into Canoobian, right? Right.
I'm well aware of the fact that the prez will never see my words, but at least my opinion will be tabulated and added to the statistics that get reported to him daily. As for the others, chances are pretty good that they'll actually read my words, or an excerpt therefrom.
You can help by reprinting my words. Make sure you include my name.
Dear [insert title and name here]:
I'm writing to you today about the bonuses that have been making the news. I'm adamantly opposed to the bonuses, and I want to convince you to oppose them and to do whatever you can to discontinue them.
I understand the principle behind these annual bonuses.
On reason for the bonuses is that when a company is doing well, those executives who are responsible for its success are rewarded more than the rank and file, supposedly because they are more responsible than the rank and file for the company's success. That's a bunch of bull, but I won't get into that in this letter.
The other reason for the bonuses is to "retain" top talent so that they're not wooed away by their competitors. The NFL, NBA, and MLB do the same thing. We know how it works. This isn't rocket science.
But when a company has a disastrous financial year, its stock price falls through the floor, it has to lay off thousands of its employees to rescue its bottom line, and THEN it has to call on the federal government for financial help, ITS EXECUTIVES DO NOT DESERVE A BONUS, NOR ARE THEY WORTH RETAINING.
And they especially don't deserve a bonus if ONE CENT OF IT comes from my taxes. I'm out of work right now. I can't get a job. I've been trying since December. I know people who have been trying for longer than that. Don't go giving my money to someone who was in some small part responsible for the mess we're in right now.
I'd be glad to speak with you in person about this.
Regards
Ray Depew
[address and phone deleted]
I'm well aware of the fact that the prez will never see my words, but at least my opinion will be tabulated and added to the statistics that get reported to him daily. As for the others, chances are pretty good that they'll actually read my words, or an excerpt therefrom.
You can help by reprinting my words. Make sure you include my name.
Dear [insert title and name here]:
I'm writing to you today about the bonuses that have been making the news. I'm adamantly opposed to the bonuses, and I want to convince you to oppose them and to do whatever you can to discontinue them.
I understand the principle behind these annual bonuses.
On reason for the bonuses is that when a company is doing well, those executives who are responsible for its success are rewarded more than the rank and file, supposedly because they are more responsible than the rank and file for the company's success. That's a bunch of bull, but I won't get into that in this letter.
The other reason for the bonuses is to "retain" top talent so that they're not wooed away by their competitors. The NFL, NBA, and MLB do the same thing. We know how it works. This isn't rocket science.
But when a company has a disastrous financial year, its stock price falls through the floor, it has to lay off thousands of its employees to rescue its bottom line, and THEN it has to call on the federal government for financial help, ITS EXECUTIVES DO NOT DESERVE A BONUS, NOR ARE THEY WORTH RETAINING.
And they especially don't deserve a bonus if ONE CENT OF IT comes from my taxes. I'm out of work right now. I can't get a job. I've been trying since December. I know people who have been trying for longer than that. Don't go giving my money to someone who was in some small part responsible for the mess we're in right now.
I'd be glad to speak with you in person about this.
Regards
Ray Depew
[address and phone deleted]
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