And so is Powerline. Here is John Hinderaker's excellent post on the Senate's blocking cloture vote of the WPT. Sens. Obama, Clinton and McCain were all absent.
"Our oil companies control tiny amounts of petroleum (relative to the world's big players) because they are shackled by Congress, which prohibits them by law from accessing America's abundant petroleum reserves. If you want gasoline prices to come down, write, call and email your Congressman and Senators and tell them to allow the oil companies to do what only they can do: bring us more oil."
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Earmarks - overblown and overhyped
Alterman has the numbers on earmarks, the latest government waste buzzword that amounts to really less than a drop in the bucket --
"For the record:
Total value of all earmarks for 2008 (good and wasteful), projected: $17 billion, or 0.5 percent of total federal spending
Contrast that cost with, for example, the war in Iraq:
Cost of Iraq war per month in 2008: $12 billion (For the year, that's 4.2 percent total spending.)"
Here is the government's database of earmarks, which regrettably doesn't separate them by individual congressional sponsor. And here are the Citizens Against Government Waste, who believe Earmarks are a Really Big Deal.
"For the record:
Total value of all earmarks for 2008 (good and wasteful), projected: $17 billion, or 0.5 percent of total federal spending
Contrast that cost with, for example, the war in Iraq:
Cost of Iraq war per month in 2008: $12 billion (For the year, that's 4.2 percent total spending.)"
Here is the government's database of earmarks, which regrettably doesn't separate them by individual congressional sponsor. And here are the Citizens Against Government Waste, who believe Earmarks are a Really Big Deal.
The Real Numbers on Missed Votes
The top three vote-missing Senators for this session, and their corresponding percentages of votes missed out of the total, are as follows - Sen. John McCain, 60.4%; Sen. Tim Johnson (The South Dakota Senator who suffered a stroke in 2007), 53.3%; Sen. Barack Obama, 42%.
Oddly enough, the workaholics - those who haven't missed a single vote - are not generally household names: John Barrasso, Bob Casey, Susan Collins, Russ Feingold, Charles Grassley, Herb Kohl, Mark Pryor, Kenneth Salazar, and Olympia Snowe.
Oddly enough, the workaholics - those who haven't missed a single vote - are not generally household names: John Barrasso, Bob Casey, Susan Collins, Russ Feingold, Charles Grassley, Herb Kohl, Mark Pryor, Kenneth Salazar, and Olympia Snowe.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Where the money goes
To subsidize struggling farmers David Letterman and the owners of the Utah Jazz, of course -
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"Consider their latest masterpiece, the 2007 farm bill that Congress this week delivered, several months late, to George Bush. Congress and the farmers have conspired to make an already unjust agricultural policy—a system that has subsidised the “farming” activities of such paupers as David Letterman and David Rockefeller—even worse. Through a complicated and overlapping system of government-sponsored insurance, counter-cyclical assistance, disaster aid and legacy payments tied to nothing, the five-year, $307 billion bill lavishes cash on wealthy farm households, the main restriction on collecting it being a means test that applies to couples making more than $1.5m a year. And even that can be avoided by employing a reasonably competent accountant.
Shockingly, the bill's authors tied some future subsidy payments to today's record commodity prices, therefore guaranteeing already well-off farmers high incomes. Commercial farm households, which get most of the largesse, will have an average income of $229,920 in 2008, says the Agriculture Department. And it means, as the department points out, that the government could owe billions in subsidy payments to these big farmers if and when prices dip again."
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Sen. Obama voted for this piece of junk. Sen. McCain, to his credit, did not. Also to President Bush's credit, he exercised a little fiscal prudence for once and vetoed the bill, though it was overridden.
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"Consider their latest masterpiece, the 2007 farm bill that Congress this week delivered, several months late, to George Bush. Congress and the farmers have conspired to make an already unjust agricultural policy—a system that has subsidised the “farming” activities of such paupers as David Letterman and David Rockefeller—even worse. Through a complicated and overlapping system of government-sponsored insurance, counter-cyclical assistance, disaster aid and legacy payments tied to nothing, the five-year, $307 billion bill lavishes cash on wealthy farm households, the main restriction on collecting it being a means test that applies to couples making more than $1.5m a year. And even that can be avoided by employing a reasonably competent accountant.
Shockingly, the bill's authors tied some future subsidy payments to today's record commodity prices, therefore guaranteeing already well-off farmers high incomes. Commercial farm households, which get most of the largesse, will have an average income of $229,920 in 2008, says the Agriculture Department. And it means, as the department points out, that the government could owe billions in subsidy payments to these big farmers if and when prices dip again."
-----------
Sen. Obama voted for this piece of junk. Sen. McCain, to his credit, did not. Also to President Bush's credit, he exercised a little fiscal prudence for once and vetoed the bill, though it was overridden.
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