President Barack Obama promised change … including in the way Congress did things. As a senator, he sponsored a transparency bill that — if Congress could only have stuck with after passing — would have publicized all proposed pork.
And there’s the rub. Congress is constitutionally in charge of change, really. You might say “change” is Congress’s job: New things for government are supposed to come from Congress in the form of legislation. Not from the president.
So how has Congress helped? Well, as I’ve reported before, the new Congress has indicated pretty clearly what kind of change it wants: A stronger stranglehold on power and a narrow purview of options to be considered.
None of this represent the kind of change Americans want … or Obama promised.
The most interesting procedural proposals come, these days, from the minority Republicans.
Opposing the developing Democrat bailout package (that spends more trillions we don’t have), House Minority Leader John Boehner asked that no so such bill be “brought to the floor of the House unless there have been public hearings in the appropriate committees, the entire text has been available online for the American people to review for at least one week, and it includes no special-interest earmarks.”
Veteran Washington reporter Cokie Roberts called Boehner’s proposal “delightful.”
Delightful it is, and in Obama’s spirit, too, but it’s up to Congress to deliver.
So far, no good.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
16 replies on “Change So Far”
I enjoy reading your Common Sense articles.
Just wondering if the 70 trillion dollar bills would also equal a very high dung heap, since it has been promoted by the greatest of our bull promulgators!
A simple change would get the economy moving again with the people making the buying decisions rather than a bunch of Corporate Lobbyists and those that serve the government bureaucracy at all levels.
The proposed change is: Permit a penalty free withdrawal from ones IRA or 401K’s.
We have trillions of dollars tied up in IRA’s and 401K’s that could be working for those that saved the money while reversing the economic decline.
Those that would rather not make a withdrawal wouldn’t have to, while those that do would be better off rather than losing the value anyway due to the inflation that would result from massive federal stimulus borrowing. Perhaps John Kennedy said it best: “Inflation is the most incideous form of taxation.” We must avoid inflation as it robs our future and lowers our standard of living, just like higher taxes.
Government spending has proven to be inefficient and won’t do much like FDR’s programs which, in effect, were bailed out by Hitler’s invasion of Poland and our providing materiel to our Allies.
A big tax cut would quickly put money into individuals’ hands with the power to chose what they want to do with it. The sophistry that they will only save it is so ridiculous as, being fungible, the money will be in the Free Market system buying whatever they want if that is what Free individuals want to do. After all, it is the taxpayers money not politicians.
As to your piece, “Trillions I Say” you say that congress is trying to ensure their re-election. In the case of the Republicans, I think you may be right on some of them. The Democrats and some Republicans are actually trying their best to crash the dollar to a value near zero. Just like the German mark back in the twenties, the Brazilian Cruziero(?) in the nineties, and the Icelandic Krona today. They seem to have some kind of death wish. I don’t understand it.
I don’t find illustrations like
“the dollar bills would reach
half-way to the sun” particularly
helpful.
However, I DO need some kind of
help, my mind cannot readily grasp
70 trillion dollars.
However, let’s say there are
about 140 million tax payers
in the US. That makes it
about half a million per
tax payer, or something between
5 and 15 years of wages for
most taxpayers.
Unfortunately, that I CAN
understand.
Nils Andersson
We are getting very used to hearing about all these billions of dollars being thrown around willy-nilly and we’re losing sight of how much money it really is. I did a little math and here is a refresher.
One billion is one thousand million or 1 followed by 9 zeros. (1,000,000,000). If you spent one million every day it would last you almost 3 years.
One trillion is one thousand billion or 1 followed by 12 zeros. (1,000,000,000,000). If you spent one million every day it would last you almost three thousand years. If you increase your spending to 100 million every day it would still take almost 30 years to spend it all.
The total price for the bailouts is by some estimates going to be up to 3 trillion dollars. Divide this huge sum by the roughly 300 million men, women, and children living in the US and it comes to $10,000 each. Get ready to dig deep.
I don’t find illustrations like
“dollar bills half way to the sun”
particularly helpful.
But I DO need some kind of help,
my imagination cannot deal with
trillions of dollars.
Try this: 70 trillion divided by
say 140 million tax payers gives
about half a million dollars
per tax payer.
That is between 5 and 15 years
of wages (and labor) for the
average person.
Unfortunately, that I CAN
understand.
Nils Andersson
Paul, put it in the most simple of terms. Cost per citizen, cost per year per citizen(if every citizen paid ___ per year, it would take _____years to pay off their portion of the debt), how about cost per child born in the next five years if it gets no worse.
I couldn’t agree with you more. ALL of this was predicted by Glenn Beck two years ago. He referred to it as “The Perfect Storm”. Well, here we are and STILL not enough people seem to be worried about it. The REAL problem is that we have no life boats to help us out for two more years. We can all be drowned by then. THEN WHAT?
Your article “Trillions I Say” is off by a factor of 10.
The stacked 70 trillon dollars height would be 4.35 million miles high.
A dollar bill is 0.1 mm thick which converts to 0.0003281 feet thick.
This times 70 trillon in miles is 4.35 million, not 48 million.
TRILLIONS OF DEBT??
THIS IS BECAUSE THE GREEDY, DIRTY ROTTON, EGOTISTICALLY STUPID, RICH AND WANNABE-RICH ARE SPENDING THE TAXPAYERS MONEY THE WAY THEY WANT.
WHEN DID THEY ASK “WE THE PEOPLE” FOR OUR INPUT?
Oliver Cromwell’s dismissal of Parliment in 1653. Might any of this apply to Congress?
“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of potage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money; is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter’d your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil’d this sacred place, and turn’d the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress’d, are yourselves become the greatest grievance. Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do; I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place; go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! Go! Take away that stinking bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!”
First, I am a registered Republican, voted for Reagan, etc. Thus, having established my credentials, I ask the folling:
Has anyone noticed that in the last several terms of office, that the Republicans seem to act like Republicans only when they are in the minority, and like Demotrash when they are in the majority?
Just a thought.
Hank
Unfortunately, the Republicans are many days late and trillions of dollars short!
Wonder if the Republican senators will band together and vote a sounding “NO!”
Obama, change my shorts.
A NATIONAL PETITION DRIVE could help wake up Congress and other elected officials.
WE can talk all we want, however, if “We the People” do not take action, you can “Kiss America goodby”.
And then sit in your rocker and explain to your grand-children that you paid no attention and took no action to protect America.
I don’t have any children and I am taking action and submitting ideas, etc.