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I was just thinking today that there are two bills currently introduced in the House that clearly demonstrate how Congress acts in opposition to real progress. One is H.R. 1207 (text) and the other is H.R. 3200 (Table of Contents). Let’s have a look at some facts related to these two bills and what those facts illustrate.
H.R. 1207 was introduced just under 5 months ago. The full text of the bill easily fits on one page so every member of Congress could read the bill anytime they have two minuets to spare (admittedly members of Congress are not long on spare time). The bill currently has well over half of all members of the House listed as co-sponsors and yet there is no indication of when it will be voted on in the House Committee on Financial Services (more than half the committee members are co-sponsors but the committee chair is not among them). The Senate version of the bill now has co-sponsors and might well exceed 50 co-sponsors before it comes up for a vote.
H.R. 3200 was introduced two days ago. The table of contents for this bill is longer than the text of H.R. 1207. The bill is more than 1000 pages long (does anyone have that kind of spare time?) and there is every indication that the bill will come to a vote within the three weeks before the August recess (possibly within one week) – well before the vast majority of the members of Congress will have been able to do more than scan it briefly.
If history is any guide (which it generally is) this massive bill being rushed through Congress without adequate deliberation (just like the Patriot Act and TARP) will very soon be the cause of new government intervention (by 2016 at the latest) as we try to clean up the mess that it will leave in its wake.
H.R. 1207 would require an audit of the Federal Reserve Bank and would have the effect of shedding real light on this quasi-government entity for the first time. That would be a distinct change on the way government normally functions.
H.R. 3200 adds to the scope of government in the economy and adds regulations and requirements for private industry (which admittedly needs reform) as well as making new requirements for individual citizens whose liberty Congress and the Constitution are supposed to be protecting. This is congressional business as usual.
Progress would be making positive changes in the way that the government operates – in other words changes that improve the freedom of citizens that are protected in teh Constitution which Congress is supposed to be upholding – by taking incremental steps up the mountain of liberty. Congress, in contrast to progress, is jumping blindly off of tall cliffs and hoping that the backpack they grabbed on the way over was a parachute.
2 replies on “The Opposite of Progress”
Great points! And wonderful, succinct closing paragraph. I’d even say that, rather than jumping off themselves, they’re throwing *us* off of cliffs… with a backpack they tell us is a parachute but actually contains a brick. Hoping it’s a parachute does allow them a smidgen of humanitarian concern, though… 😉
It probably would have been more accurate for me to say that they are jumping off a cliff and dragging us with them while hoping for the necessary parachutes.