Category: National
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Two (or more) Wrongs Don’t Make a Right
I was listening to Peter Schiff’s Wall Street Unspun for this week and he said something that cemented a change of perspective I had been considering regarding the AIG bonuses. I had been thinking about this idea of taxing the bonuses at 100% and relizing that it amounted to an ex post facto law –…
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Federalist No. 57
Federalist No. 57 contains a statement describing the proper goals of any constitution boiled down to two simple points: The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in…
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I Missed An Option
When I listed the options yesterday for how to deal with the AIG bonuses I obviously missed one. One member of the house thought up the idea that we could tax AIG bonuses at 100 percent. The beauty of his bill is that it is written to apply to large bonuses at any company receiving…
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“Our Hands Are Tied”
Despite rumors to the contrary, this country is still based on the rule of law – especially when the law favors a guy who has a "bonus" in excess of $6 Million dollars coming to him. By now almost everybody has certainly heard about the $165 Million of bonuses being paid to AIG execs. In…
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Federalist Nos. 55 – 56
Federalist No. 55 and Federalist No. 56 explore a subject which has grown increasingly interesting and important to me the more I have studied – that is a consideration of the proper size of the House of Representatives. Here I find, unsurprisingly, that a few assumptions were made which have proven to be critically incorrect.…
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D.C. Voting – House vs Senate
Apparently the Senate cloture vote is more newsworthy than the House rules vote on a bill. We have heard on many bills that the cloture vote is the bottleneck or the hurdle that can trip up a bill. In the House the rules vote is the procedural hurdle that must precede the actual vote and…
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Envision the GOP to Come
In the current discussions regarding the future direction of the GOP as the Republican party seeks to find ways back to leading the nation there are many ideas being suggested. Some of those ideas deserve no consideration, such as abdicating our conservative roots and embracing an expanding government. Other ideas merit serious consideration, such as…
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Accountability Now
MoveOn.org has proven that they can be a political force, so has The Daily Kos, and long before either of them existed labor unions were already very influential in politics. That made me very interested to read that those three were teaming up to form a new political action committee called Accountability Now. Their stated…
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Federalist No. 51
Of course the importance of checks and balances in our government is a well known concept as discussed in Federalist No. 51. What I had not previously realized was that splitting the Congress into two houses was a part of the effort on checks and balances. I had always understood that choice to simply be…
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Senators Seeing the Future (Clearly)
There are obviously a few things that I don’t understand about the Senate. Yesterday I reported that according to Senator Bennett the most important (he said it was most important, it was not simply the first thing on his list) part of the job of a senator is to try to see the future clearly.…