23 March 2009

Feingold, Ryan promote line item veto plan - JSOnline

"The Congressional Accountability and Line-item Veto Act would allow the president to propose removing earmarks from legislation that lands on his desk and send them back to Congress in one package for quick votes. The House and Senate would have 12 days to bring the package of line item vetoes for a vote with a simple majority voting in favor of keeping them in or deleting them from the budget."

http://is.gd/oABL

Feingold's plan sounds great to me. Except that it says: "Congress can't do it's job, so maybe the President can do it for them".

It's Congress' job to legislate, but they can't control the destructive behavior of earmarks. There was a lot of talk about it in the last year, but nothing's been done. It's understandable why not. It's the MoC's bread-and-butter. They get and maintain their support at home by slipping in payouts to pet constituent's projects. They get other MoC's to accept it because they'll trade votes for their bills and amendments.

"It's the way things get done," they say. One of my own state's reps, Obey, has said that nothing can be done about it. At least Feingold and Ryan are trying (even if it's just symbolic, 'cause, let's face it, how many MoC's really want to give legislative power away to the President?).

Until people get pissed enough to vote out their own representatives and Senators for this crap, we're stuck with it. Thanks to Feingold and Ryan for pointing out that our lawmakers aren't doing their job.

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