Back in December I wrote about George Bush sneaking through a “midnight regulation” which would allow the carrying of loaded weapons into national parks. It was one of the regs that Pres. Obama stopped and killed on his first day in office.
Fast forward to today. Congress has just passed the credit card reform bill imposing a lot of badly needed restrictions on credit card companies. Hurray! Except perhaps for bank owners, consumers everywhere are applauding the reining in of the credit card giants.
But guess what also got signed into law as an amendment to the credit card reform bill … yep, you guessed it, a provision allowing the carrying of loaded weapons into national parks! This is how things get done in Washington. A lawmaker is just dying to get his proposal voted into law, but he can’t drum up enough so support for it on its own merits. What to do? Tack it onto to another sure-to-pass albeit totally unrelated bill as an amendment. Voila! A new law!
The gloating lawmaker who authored this particular abomination of an amendment is Sen. Tom Coburn (R), of Oklahoma. Not that he’s any worse than any other lawmaker who slips unrelated amendments into pending legislation or votes to pass bills containing irrelevant provisions.
Washington, that great little sausage factory on the East Coast, is in need of some serious reform of its own. If a measure cannot garner enough support to pass on its own merits, it doesn’t deserve to pass, period. No measure should be allowed to piggyback its way into law on the backside of another totally unrelated bill.
Irritating!
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To say the least
Hey 30
Yeah attaching stuff on popular bills is the way of the Hill. It’s been that way for a long time. As to it changing, not likely. The thing is – it’s all about power – not the people, not the country, not what’s best for anyone but them. You want it to change? It’s going to take more than changing the resident in the White House. A lot more. And probably more than most people are willing to confront.
Annie
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Oh, I never thought changing the president would change our rotten system. It’s always been this way. It’s always been about the money and me, me, me. I learned that back in 1968 when the wasband and I were campaign workers for the victorious senatorial candidate in Oklahoma. A good, honest, well-intentioned man until he got to Washington. Once the horse-trading and compromising begins — as it must if you want to get anything at all done there — all the good intentions and promises go out the window. You can stand on principle there, but you’ll stand alone.
This proves my suspicion that Congress is the problem and not the solution. I think you probably already knew this.
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The question is, how do we ever fix a problem like this? People say that despite its flaws, ours is still the best system of government in the world. Cold comfort, that.
Hey 30,
I heard something else about this bill that is even more irritating. Apparently, there is some provision in there that requires the credit card companies to give those who can’t or have a hard time paying their bill some sort of special discount or break – however, those who can and are paying their bills have to pay a fee to cover this. Can you say communism? Criminy.
Annie
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WTF! Why does this remind me of an early solution to the home mortgage crisis … cut the losers a break, let someone else pick up the slack. Ah yes, I wrote about it here. Can’t those idiots in Washington think of anything more creative than letting the losers get away with their folly and making responsible people pay for it? How ’bout making the banks absorb the cost, since they created the problem? Or the government, since it underwrote the banks? Or the foreign investors who bought up all the bad credit? I figure you and I and the others who always pay on time, never go over our limits, and use our credit responsibly are the LAST people who should have to bear the cost.
But aside from all that, I hope you had a nice weekend.