Musings of a Patriot

Tag: legislation

  • Con-Gress

    As much as it may be fashionable to blame congress for many of our problems I think it is fair to take an unbiased look at how congress functions. As I began to do so I realized that no matter how numerous my complaints about the legislation we hear about and the legislative process itself…

  • 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…

  • Senate Session Wrap Up

    The legislative process has been compared to sausage making and we are often told that we don’t want to see the process. At the blogger meeting in the Senate President’s office yesterday what we got among all the talk about various bills was a peek at the sausage making process. Personally I found the insight…

  • Predictable Responses

    As newspaper Editorial Boards begin to write about SB 208 their positions mirror what I called the tip of the iceberg and what we expected on the day that SB 208 was announced. In fact, one might almost wonder in passing if the editorial in the Standard Examiner was written by the same person who…

  • Legal Notice – SB 208

    I was going to post a summary of the meeting, but many other people have already done a good job of that (Holly, JM Bell, Jason, Bob, Joe). So far, it appears that only JM Bell and BenJoe have taken the time to create something more than a back-of-the-napkin post of quotes and initial reactions. …

  • Define “Change”

    I have come to the conclusion that I should not listen to national news – it just gets me agitated. I was driving home listening to NPR and was treated to actual soundbites from the rallying speech that President Obama gave to the Democratic caucus meeting. I had head about that, but hearing these gems…

  • Legislative Accountability

    John Florez has a good perspective on what constitutes True government accountability and the forces that work against citizens from receiving the benefits of that accountability. I thought his comparison of the legislature to a corporate board of directors was very apt. My thoughts were sparked by the following statement: This year, with new legislative…

  • Self-Policing Lobbyists

    Often lost in discussions about ethics legislation and lobbyist influence is the fact that there is a legitimate value that lobbyists can bring to the legislative process. I’m in favor of making solid rules of ethics for legislators and lobbyists without removing lobbyists altogether. With that perspective, I really enjoyed this Deseret News story about…

  • Near-Sighted Legislation

    The senate is scheduled to vote today on whether to debate the bill to make two new seats in the House of Representatives and give them to give Utah and D.C. My opinion on this can be found in an editorial at National Review Online (no, I didn’t write it, but it expresses the same…

  • Fourth Seat for Utah

    The bill to give Utah a fourth seat in the House of Representatives has been hanging around for quite some time. It has not had too much coverage lately because very little has been happening with it. Yesterday I was surprised to see two editorials on the issue in Utah newspapers (Deseret News, Daily Herald).…