Really, Who Has the Time to Read HR 3200?

As we’re all well aware, the health care reform bill has been getting quite a bit of attention while Congress is on their annual August recess.  We’ve all seen the protests and the heated debates on the news on the town hall meetings that are being conducted.  During this period of time, one would like to think that it would be easy to go and read the bill, so we can all become well-informed citizens on this important piece of legislation.

I, for one, truly believe in being an educated citizen, so I can at least know whether or not the media is telling the story straight.  So I finally decided to go to my congressman’s website and see if I could find an electronic copy of the bill.  Come to find out, the bill, H.R. 3200 is available for perusal on the Thomas website, a Library of Congress website.  My congressman’s website provided a link to H.R. 3200 which is here.

I must have been delusional to think that this exercise would be short and that I would be able to get through the bill and actually understand what it completely says.  Boy was I sorely mistaken!  The bill is 1000+ pages in length!  Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but I certainly don’t have the time, nor the inclination to read something as dry as a piece of legislation.  How many people actually do?  That’s why it was most curious to me that President Obama, and members of the do-nothing Congress, wanted to rush this bill through and get it passed by the August recess.  It made me actually wonder if these elected representatives actually know what’s in this particular piece of legislation.  I also wonder if the White House actually does.

Add to the difficulty that Congressional leaders and the White House haven’t done a very good job of selling this reform bill other than to simply state “it’s needed.”  What a terrible sales pitch.  My main question is, why do we need mammoth bills like this one is?  Can’t these things be put together in a fashion where we can all have the time to read them and be able to provide feedback to our elected leaders if we decide to do so?  With the way this bill is structured, no one will have the time to read it and provide any feedback.  Is that just me, or am I going crazy?

When I saw how long this bill was, I actually e-mailed my congressman and asked him if his office could put together a five page version pretty much summarizing everything in a manner that everyone can understand.  This method would also provide him the opportunity to put to bed some of the vicious rumors I’ve been hearing about this bill, such as “death panels” which I don’t think is actually in the bill, but other myths as well.  And, since this bill does include the public option that all liberals want, I want to see some of the nitty gritty details on how that would work, and what safeguards are in place to avoid a single payer system.  And how this public option would allow greater competition, before I can make an educated decision on whether to fully support the reform bill or not.  I don’t think that’s too much to ask, or I could be mistaken.

With something as important as this piece of legislation is, and with how it has become so polarized, I think our leaders owe it to us, to do a better job of explaining this bill in less than 1000 pages.  Perhaps I’m just expecting too much.

What Happened To The Concept of Personal Responsibility?

I’m a big fan of the concept of personal responsibility.  If I make poor decisions, I expect to be responsible enough to handle the consequences without the prospect of being insulated from them.  The recent string of government bailouts has convinced me that the government is not willing to allow anyone to fail or suffer from poor decisions, particularly in the business world.

But today, I’m not focusing on corporate responsibility, but that of personal responsibility, so I would like to concentrate on the home mortgage issue.  When the whole sub-prime mortgage mess blew up, I couldn’t help but ask myself the following questions:

1. Why would banks approve lending such risky loans to obviously risky individuals?
2. Why would people take out mortgages they clearly could not afford?

Banks share responsibility for this mess as much as those individuals who took out these mortgages.  I don’t understand why banks would even approve risky loans to risky people.  I also don’t understand why people would assume mortgage payments that they couldn’t afford.  And then, when a crisis emerges because of these terrible loans, banks and individuals expect to be bailed out for their poor decisions, and homeowners are encouraged to not leave their homes, even though they are delinquent on payments.

In this case, when individuals clearly have made poor financial decisions, why should the government be responsible for fixing their problems?  Why can’t they accept the consequences of making a poor decision?  Same thing with the banks, as they share equal blame here in my opinion.  Why, why, why, issue risky loans to risky borrowers?  It does not make sense to me.  And then to have the government provide the banks TARP money to avoid bank failures?  Now do I think that those who bank with these troubled institutions, that have met all their financial obligations, should lose their money because their bank didn’t make sound financial and business decisions, no!  However, I do feel that if banks make poor decisions that they should be allowed to fail.  As much as I think those who bought homes they couldn’t afford should not receive assistance from the government.

Plus, is it such a foreign concept to pay more for something than you can afford, especially when you’re talking about a large investment such as a home?  If I can only afford $1,000 a month for a mortgage, I’m not going to get a mortgage for $1,400 a month.  Why?  Because I won’t be living there for very long and I would expect to lose my home because I don’t make enough to satisfy the financial obligation.

But the government doesn’t believe in that.  They believe that people should not be held accountable for their poor decisions, that the government should serve as a safety net.  With that being said, my largest fear, going forward, is that everyone is going to feel entitled to government assistance no matter how much they fail.  Being responsible for one’s actions is what makes us adults.  I feel that with continued government bailouts, we are saying that the government won’t let you fail and learn from your mistakes, because you have a safety net, so let’s encourage poor decision making.

It frightens me so much that the government won’t allow people to be responsible for their actions and that it’s ok to be dependent on the government to bail out people.  It’s a scary precedent because the direction our country is moving is complete dependence on the government to solve all our problems, and that will result in big brother being involved in all our daily decisions because WE CAN’T BE TRUSTED TO MAKE THE RIGHT DECISIONS.

Caption This!

Secretaries Clinton & Gates, and the Prez

So I’m checking out Politico.com and come across their pictures of the week segment and the picture you see to your left was the first one.  Now, I’m unsure which event this picture was taken at, but I can’t help but notice Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s look during this event.

My goodness, I wonder what got her to be in such a sour mood during that particular event.  Whatever it was, she looks quite upset, or better yet, completely uninterested in what’s going on.  At least Secretary of Defense Robert Gates looks a little more interesting.

Or, could it be that she’s upset at herself for leaving the Senate?  She’s certainly had a lot on her plate since she’s left the Hill.  Between North Korea and their pending missile test launch, the Mexican drug cartel war going on, maybe the lack of experience is finally catching up to her.  On December 8, 2008, I wrote in this post my opinion on how I felt that Secretary Clinton was not qualified for the job in the first place.

Ultimately, I think it’s a combination of both, frustration with all the diplomatic problems she lacks the experience to tackle, and that she disinterested because she’s not the one responsible for making all the decisions.

Reconciliation…. Change You Can Believe In?

So, by now, everyone has heard of the possibility of Congressional democrats making use of reconciliation as  a method of getting President Obama’s budget passed in the Senate to avoid a Republican filibuster.  Fox news has an article about the possibility of reconciliation here.  Yesterday I received an email from the House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, about reconciliation.  According to that email, below is a description of budget reconciliation:

• Budget reconciliation was first introduced in the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.
• Budget reconciliation is an optional procedure that can be included in the annual Congressional budget resolution process.
• Inclusion in the budget does not mean reconciliation will definitely be used; it merely leaves the option on the table.
• The main purpose of budget reconciliation is to provide Congress the ability to change current law in order to align revenue and spending levels with the policies of the budget resolution.
• Although reconciliation is an optional procedure, it has been used most years since its first use in 1980.

I have a major issue with this approach and it deals with our new president and his campaign rhetoric.  President Obama campaigned on a promise of bringing change to Washington, and how politics would not be the same as usual as it has been.  By encouraging reconciliation, the president is encouraging business as usual in the legislative process, specifically when we are talking about cap and trade environmental policies, health care reform, and ultimately the budget.  This process will effectively eliminate the opinion of the minority in order to quickly pass massive changes to the way we approach vital areas of interest.  Silencing the minority, that sounds like an encore presentation of what we went through from 2001 until 2006, where the democrats had very little say in how business was conducted in our nation’s capital.

The president needs to get on the ball here and persuade his democratic colleagues on the hill that we need to have the opportunity for full and open debate from all fronts.  In the Fox News article I cited above, I was surprised at what Senator Robert Byrd had to say about the reconciliation process:

Legislation so far-reaching should be fully vetted and given appropriate time for debate, something the budget reconciliation process does not allow. Using this procedure would circumvent normal Senate practice and would be inconsistent with the Obama administration’s stated goals of bipartisanship, cooperation, and openness.

I have found it very difficult to find anything I can agree with Senator Byrd on, but on this occassion I find myself agreeing with him 100% on this issue.

I would like to see the President practice what he preaches because I am sick and tired of seeing business as usual here in the nation’s capital and would like to actually see something constructive accomplished in a bi-partisan manner.

Is Thanksgiving Being Shortchanged?

Usually, I find very little to agree with on the CBS news show, 60 Minutes; however, today, I think I can finally find something that I agree with.  Here is a video from Andy Rooney’s segment on 60 Minutes from yesterday:

Now, I can’t say I agree with Andy Rooney on just eating turkey and sitting around on Thanksgiving Day, but I can definitely agree with his statements on how Thanksgiving is being weeded out by retailers.  He makes a very good point on how early Christmas displays are going up in stores.  I can tell you one thing, the day before Halloween, my local mall already had their Santa area setup in the mall and just about ready to go.  Even while I was in the mall yesterday taking care of a few things, Santa was already at the mall, and Christmas music was blaring throughout the mall.  I couldn’t believe it!

Christmas season seems to be coming earlier and earlier each year.  True, I understand that Christmas time is where retailers’ make or break period for the year, but I say, what’s the hurry?  For me, personally, it would be nice if we could have Thanksgiving before even thinking about Christmas specials, and enjoy a bona fide American holiday.