The current debate about the omnibus spending bill in front of Congress is just about the silliest thing ever. Conservatives are calling it a total cave in by the Republican leadership. Liberals are calling it a total Republican power grab and a cave in by president Obama. The major ideologues and hysterics on both sides of the aisle are busy having conniptions about one provision or another in the bill. And the media is having a hypocritical field day with all that is being said. Consider these fact:
1. Senator Elizabeth Warren has appeared numerous times to urge her fellow Democrats to vote down the bill with the result that the government will shut down. This is the same senator Warren who told us last year that a shut down of the government was terrorism, hooliganism and...well, you get the idea. Cherokee Liz now tells us that the pending bill is a bail out of big Wall Street firms. Of course, this is crap. The bill rolls back some new regulations in Dodd-Frank that did nothing more than cause America's banks to run up higher costs without providing any benefit for those costs. After all, is there still anyone out there who thinks that if Citibank or Bank of America were about to go under because of activities not covered by FDIC, the Federal Reserve would let that happen? We all saw what happened when they let Lehman Brothers go under.
2. The mainstream media is applauding the "principled stand" by Cherokee Liz. Huh? This is the same group that became apoplectic in the past when Republicans fought for a delay in the implementation of Obamacare and that fight led to a short government shut down. The media told us the shut down was extortion and criminal. Now it would be principled. Even outlets like Fox News cannot seem to cover the budget dealings without breathlessly telling us how close we are coming to a shut down. Is that really necessary? Is has always been clear that if a deal fails, then Congress will just pass a two month extension and the government will go on functioning as before.
3. The increase in permissible contributions to political parties is denounced by folks like Bernie Sanders (a socialist senator from Vermont) as giving money more say in our politics. But is there anyone out there who thinks that there really are any limits at this point? Tom Steyer supposedly gave Democrats over $100 million in the midterms that just ended. Almost every candidate that his group backed was defeated, so he did not get much bang for his buck. The point, however, is not how futile his money was, but rather that there was no limit. In 2012, how many big contributors gave over a million dollars to one presidential candidate or another? It was quite a few, even though direct contributions were limited to $5000 per person. There are plenty of ways around that, however. (And Sanders manages to denounce Republicans for this provision in the bill even though it came from Harry Reid, a Democrat.)
4. There is also a lot of noise among conservatives that the bill "funds" Obamacare. That is not true. Obamacare itself contained all of the funding needed for the law until after the end of the first decade after its passage. The only way to prevent funding would be to vote to remove that funding. Does any sane person believe that the Democrats in the Senate would go along with defunding Obamacare? Despite reality, the screams go on and on.
The truth is that a bill like this is (pardon this expression) a "teachable moment". We get to learn which members of the House and Senate are honest, which are intelligent, and which can recognize reality. So far, the results are not too promising.
1. Senator Elizabeth Warren has appeared numerous times to urge her fellow Democrats to vote down the bill with the result that the government will shut down. This is the same senator Warren who told us last year that a shut down of the government was terrorism, hooliganism and...well, you get the idea. Cherokee Liz now tells us that the pending bill is a bail out of big Wall Street firms. Of course, this is crap. The bill rolls back some new regulations in Dodd-Frank that did nothing more than cause America's banks to run up higher costs without providing any benefit for those costs. After all, is there still anyone out there who thinks that if Citibank or Bank of America were about to go under because of activities not covered by FDIC, the Federal Reserve would let that happen? We all saw what happened when they let Lehman Brothers go under.
2. The mainstream media is applauding the "principled stand" by Cherokee Liz. Huh? This is the same group that became apoplectic in the past when Republicans fought for a delay in the implementation of Obamacare and that fight led to a short government shut down. The media told us the shut down was extortion and criminal. Now it would be principled. Even outlets like Fox News cannot seem to cover the budget dealings without breathlessly telling us how close we are coming to a shut down. Is that really necessary? Is has always been clear that if a deal fails, then Congress will just pass a two month extension and the government will go on functioning as before.
3. The increase in permissible contributions to political parties is denounced by folks like Bernie Sanders (a socialist senator from Vermont) as giving money more say in our politics. But is there anyone out there who thinks that there really are any limits at this point? Tom Steyer supposedly gave Democrats over $100 million in the midterms that just ended. Almost every candidate that his group backed was defeated, so he did not get much bang for his buck. The point, however, is not how futile his money was, but rather that there was no limit. In 2012, how many big contributors gave over a million dollars to one presidential candidate or another? It was quite a few, even though direct contributions were limited to $5000 per person. There are plenty of ways around that, however. (And Sanders manages to denounce Republicans for this provision in the bill even though it came from Harry Reid, a Democrat.)
4. There is also a lot of noise among conservatives that the bill "funds" Obamacare. That is not true. Obamacare itself contained all of the funding needed for the law until after the end of the first decade after its passage. The only way to prevent funding would be to vote to remove that funding. Does any sane person believe that the Democrats in the Senate would go along with defunding Obamacare? Despite reality, the screams go on and on.
The truth is that a bill like this is (pardon this expression) a "teachable moment". We get to learn which members of the House and Senate are honest, which are intelligent, and which can recognize reality. So far, the results are not too promising.
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