Tag: Congress

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national politics & policies too much government

The Audacity of the Swamp

swamp, corruption, Washington DC, politics

A crony anti-​infrastructure plan.

That, writes Veronique de Rugy at Reason, is “the best description of the Biden administration’s proposed $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan.”

Democrats are the masters of favoring a select few at the expense of the electorate and calling it the Public Good. Their woke moralism, egalitarianism, and other pieties effectively mask their party’s accomplished crony scheming.

Right now, though, the heady audacity of spending trillions of dollars we do not (yet) possess is all the mask the Democrats appear to need. 

Does anyone talk about the Swamp anymore?

Never drained, it is back with a vengeance:

  • “A large share of the plan … is a massive handout to private companies. The proposal includes $300 billion to promote advanced manufacturing, $174 billion for electric vehicles, $100 billion for broadband, $100 billion for electric utility industry, and more.”
  • “Biden’s plan also includes hundreds of billions that have nothing even remotely to do with infrastructure.”
  • “To the extent that Democrats are trying to pay for this spending with taxes, they’re doing it in a way that belies their claim that this plan will result in a boost in quality infrastructure.”

The tax increase in the plan is to eliminate established tax “preferences” for fossil fuel companies. This would be politically popular with Democratic Party supporters, feeding their enviro-​lust to lash out at what are commonly perceived as destroyers of the planet. But tax something more, get less. And a huge part of our infrastructure relies upon — indeed, consists in — the fossil fuel industry. So there will be less infrastructure investment in that realm.

But that doesn’t hurt the cronies. It hurts other folks.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies partisanship

Our Rules or Theirs?

Last Thursday, President Biden signaled “that he would be willing to consider supporting the elimination of the filibuster,” CBS News reported following his first news conference, “if Senate Republicans use it to block Democratic legislative priorities from receiving a full vote on the Senate floor.”

“If”? Stopping the majority party from taking its legislation to a floor vote without a 60-​vote supermajority to end debate is what the filibuster does.  

The president, a Democrat, is saying the filibuster is OK … as long as Republicans don’t use it.

You will of course not be shocked to learn that Biden has been a longtime, adamant supporter of the filibuster. In 2005, he gave an impassioned defense, arguing, “At its core, the filibuster is not about stopping a nominee or a bill — it’s about compromise and moderation.”

Biden called the GOP attack then a “fundamental power grab” and said his oration “may be one of the most important speeches for historical purposes that I will have given in the 32 years since I have been in the Senate.”

Yet, the filibuster is not in the Constitution. 

It is simply a Senate rule. And the majority party in the Senate can thereby fiddle with it. 

I’m not so much wed to the filibuster as I am wed to the idea that the rules with which Washington insiders wield power serve us and not just themselves. 

The filibuster should be made official in law or Constitution precisely so politicians cannot change it on whim or passion. 

Or it should be ended. But not before one party (or both) actually campaigns to end it, so that the American people can weigh in. Because these must be our rules if it is to be our government. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights media and media people

Misinformed … or Worse?

Google, Twitter, Facebook, Congress, censorship, free speech

“For the third time in less than five months,” journalist Glenn Greenwald writes at Substack, “the U.S. Congress has summoned the CEOs of social media companies to appear before them, with the explicit intent to pressure and coerce them to censor more content from their platforms. On March 25, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will interrogate Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, Facebooks’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai at a hearing …”

A joint statement by Democrat committee and subcommittee chairs declares: “This hearing will continue the Committee’s work of holding online platforms accountable for the growing rise of misinformation and disinformation.”

Wait — the constitutional authority of Congress does not stretch to holding social media “accountable” for political speech. The First Amendment clearly states that “Congress shall make no [such] law …”

And what Congress is forbidden to do, it cannot threaten and intimidate private companies into doing, instead.

“For the same reasons that the Constitution prohibits the government from dictating what information we can see and read … ‚” Greenwald points out, “it also prohibits the government from using its immense authority to coerce private actors into censoring on its behalf.”

Consider longtime Hillary Clinton aide Jennifer Palmieri’s response to President Trump’s banning by Twitter and Facebook: “It has not escaped my attention that the day social media companies decided there actually IS more they could do to police Trump’s destructive behavior was the same day they learned Democrats would chair all the congressional committees that oversee them.”

Many on the left — and even some libertarians — continue to argue that Congress plays no role in the censorship being carried out by these private Tech Giants. 

They are mistaken — whether because misinformed or disinformed, we can leave to another day.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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insider corruption partisanship

Member-​Directed Funding

earmark, Congress, corruption

“Congress is about to bring back its secret weapon,” CNN headlined a column yesterday.

Congress? Weapon? 

Be afraid. 

Be very afraid. 

“Earmarks are back,” Chris Cillizza immediately informs readers … you know, “what is technically known as ‘member-​directed funding.’” 

Before you can say “terrible idea,” the cable channel’s editor-​at-​large does admit that “members securing money for pet projects in their districts could go wrong.”

Yeah. Right. Has gone wrong. Will go wrong. Is wrong.

“This is a sneaky big deal,” offers Cillizza nonetheless. “And a massive win for party leaders of both parties.”

Cillizza argues that it was a big mistake for Speaker John Boehner and the GOP leadership in Congress to take away their ability to reward individual congresspeople by stuffing a couple multi-​million-​dollar pet projects into the budget. What’s not to like for an incumbent politician? They get to hand out money right in their districts, with their name attached to it. 

As long as a member of Congress plays ball.

The way the party bosses say.

In return, that incumbent can likely stay in this nation’s heralded leadership for years, decades.

When “you realize that in taking away earmarks,” explains Cillizza, “Boehner robbed party leaders of their most potent weapon to keep their rank-​and-​file in line on key votes.”

Is it even plausible for the functioning of our democratic republic that “party leaders” — nowhere mentioned or given any power in our Constitution — leverage our tax dollars to essentially buy off our representatives in order to keep our representatives “in line” on other important votes?

No.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies term limits

Why Congress Can’t Read

Blind Leading the Blind, US Congress, politicians

They don’t read.

No one reads the legislation Congress passes, not the staffers and lobbyists who write “the packages” and congresspeople least of all, as again illustrated by the recent 5,593-page, $2.3 trillion pandemic-​relief-​plus-​kitchen-​sink bill just passed by Congress. 

They haven’t for decades. 

Nor do they care to.

James Bovard, expert reporter on the excesses of the modern individual-​stomping state, says the new monster-​bill “is another warning that know-​nothing, no-​fault legislating will be the death of our republic unless Americans can severely reduce Congress’s prerogative to meddle in their lives.”

Correct. Problem is, it’s Congress that must enact reform — on itself. Talk about a conflict of interest! That’s why the citizen initiative process has been so important at the state level. Without democratic checks — initiative, referendum, recall — at the federal level, what major reform is even possible? 

All big, necessary reforms hit a roadblock on that issue alone.

That goes for limiting the page-​length of bills or requiring legislation be posted online for days if not weeks before a vote. 

Same for congressional term limits, which would de-​insulate Congress from us. 

And, just so, with the late columnist Bob Novak’s proposal of smaller districts, maybe increasing the number of U.S. representative to 2,000. (It wouldn’t cost taxpayers anything more if we cut their pay.) More politicians might be better than fewer by decreasing the power of individual politicians — diminishing marginal power, you might say.

We find ourselves in a trap. These ideas amount to ways to avoid the trap once we are out of it.

But it is getting out of the trap that’s the hard part.

Any ideas? Please advise. You can be sure your good ideas will be read — not by Congress, of course, but by those of us who want a way out. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability incumbents

When More Is Better

Congress, representation, democracy,

On Monday, we considered how to get better representation in Congress for the 700,000 folks residing in our nation’s capital city, Washington, D.C.

Today, let’s tackle how the rest of us get any semblance of representation. We are sliced up into 435 congressional districts, each comprised of roughly 700,000 people electing a “representative” supposedly doing our business in Washington. 

Are they doing our business? 

The nearly universal and long-​standing public disapproval of Congress answers that question.*

As the framers of the Constitution saw it, Congress would be the first and most powerful branch of government, as it would be closest to the people. The original idea was to create in members of Congress a “fidelity to their constituents,” James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 57, which “would be found very insufficient without the restraint of frequent elections. Hence … the House of Representatives is so constituted as to support in the members an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people.”

Madison goes on to say that congresspeople “will be compelled to anticipate the moment when their power is to cease.”

Yet well-​funded congressional incumbents sporting 90 percent-​plus re-​election rates cycle after cycle, decade after decade — serving 20 and 30 and 50-​plus years — cannot plausibly feel either compelled or dependent.

Looming large over the problem? Huge population districts. 

The more voters in a district, the more expansive and expensive campaigns must be … and the bigger the need for help from special interests … and the more powerful those groups’ influence.

Conversely, the smaller a district is, the more influence constituents individually have on their representative.

It may seem paradoxical, but it isn’t: citizens will wield more power when there are more representatives in Congress.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* In April, after sending stimulus checks to the entire country, Congress did more than double its approval rating, though it is still seen unfavorably by a lopsided two-​to-​one margin.

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