2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumLegislation Constipation
Here are what I modestly and humbly refer to as Graysons Laws of Legislating: (1) Vote for what youre in favor of. (2) Vote for what you can live with, if you must do that to get what you need. What weve been seeing in the House of Representatives lately have been massive and pervasive violations of Graysons Laws of Legislating. Instead of Ill vote for X because its right, or You dont like X and I dont like Y, but Ill vote for X and Y if you vote for X and Y, instead its If I dont get Z, I aint votin on nothin. And thats the problem.
Lets take one very pertinent example: the impeding tax increases on taxpayers making less than $250,000 a year. I dont know a single Member of the House, Democratic or Republican, who has said on the record that he or she is in favor of raising taxes, starting next Tuesday, on taxpayers making less than $250,000 a year. Lets suppose that you crafted a one-sentence bill reading as follows: There shall be no income tax rate increases for the 2013 tax year on taxpayers making less than $250,000 a year. Lets suppose that you then administered sodium pentathol to every Member of Congress. Lets suppose that you then had a vote on that bill. Obviously, it would pass the House by 435 to 0, or something close to that. Followed immediately by unanimous passage by the Senate, and the Presidents signature.
(Here is another entertaining thought experiment: Just for fun, administer sodium pentathol to Rush Limbaugh, too. Youd have three hours of total silence on the airwaves.)
So anyway, in the case of no income tax rate increases for everyone but the rich, Graysons First Law of Legislating is sufficient. Everyones in favor of it, so everyone votes for it. Done.
It turns out that many, many components of the so-called fiscal cliff could be resolved quite simply by applying Graysons First Law of Legislating. I think its fair to say that a majority of the Members of Congress, right or wrong, are in favor of raising the debt ceiling before the governments borrowing capacity is exhausted. I think its fair to say that a majority of the Members of Congress, right or wrong, are against a 27% cut in Medicare payments to doctors, starting next week. I think its fair to say that a majority of the Members of Congress, right or wrong, are against an 8% cut in air traffic control on Jan. 1. If you had single votes, up or down, on 90% of the components of the fiscal cliff, the outcome would not be in doubt.
And as for the remaining 10%, then youve got Graysons Second Law of Legislating to apply. I really, really dont want to see unemployment insurance benefits cut off for millions of unemployed workers, seven days after Christmas. Maybe Rep. Skullinrear (R-Tea Party) doesnt care. But Rep. Skullinrear really, really doesnt want to see a 12% cut in defense spending from sequestration next week. I may not share Rep. Skullinrears morbid preoccupation with blowing stuff up. Nevertheless, his morbid preoccupation with blowing stuff up, together with my odd aversion to seeing families living in cars, gives the two of us something to talk about.
Mick Jagger, that eminent political scholar, had it all figured out more than forty years ago. You cant always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find you just might find -- that you get what you need.
But in the House, thats not what were seeing at all. Instead, we see what might be called the Young John McCain Law of Legislating. Senator John McCain has written that when he was a toddler, he sometimes got so furious that he held his breath until he passed out.
Now John Boehner is doing it. Boehner is holding his breath until America passes out.
Its been ten months since the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board coined the term fiscal cliff when he called attention to the massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases that will go into effect less than a week from now. Ten months. But in all of that time, there has been nothing in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives even remotely resembling a line-by-line vote on whether each one of those spending cuts and tax increases, individually, is good or bad. Just John Boehner holding his breath until the Democrats agree to extending tax breaks for the rich, and cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Its the worst case of legislation constipation that Ive ever seen. But thats what happens what ought to happen -- when the folks in charge say over and over again, Im in favor of X, but I wont vote for X, or even allow a vote for X, unless I get Y.
Were going to need some kind of patch to get through this. But I hope that the Powers That Be learn from this mistake. Slice it all into little pieces, and then vote each piece up or down. It works. And its a lot more practical than hoping that John Boehner, or Barack Obama, pulls a rabbit out of his hat.
Courage,
Alan Grayson
Oh, you can't always get what you want.
Oh, you can't always get what you want.
Oh, you can't always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes,
You just might find, you just might find,
You get what you need.
- The Rolling Stones, You Cant Always Get What You Want (1969).
freshwest
(53,661 posts)lunatica
(53,410 posts)There are so many of them!