Post #243,132
2/1/06 11:49:54 AM
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State of Union speech comes across lukewarm
[link|http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060201/ap_on_go_pr_wh/state_of_union|Yahoo.com] President Bush, opening the fall campaign season, is painting Democrats as defeatist for criticizing his march to war in
Iraq and protectionist for questioning new trade deals and tax-cut extensions.
Grumbling Democrats looking for advantage in Bush's weak poll numbers and burgeoning scandals in GOP congressional ranks refused to cede center stage as the president laid out his 2006 priorities Tuesday night in his fifth State of the Union address. Three-fourths of the people who watched the speech said they approve of the proposals made by Bush, according to a CBS News poll Tuesday night of 734 viewers. Those who watched the speech were more likely to be Republican, but only a third who saw the speech thought the president will be able to achieve the goals he mentioned. As expected, Republicans liked it and Democrats didn't. The middle of the road group that Bush was hoping to sway seem to be indifferent to somewhat unhappy with the speech. Mostly they don't think that Bush can do the things he talked about in the speech or was just saying typical political platitudes without meaning to do anything. [link|http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/02/01/ANALYSIS.TMP|SFGATE] President Bush's call for Republicans and Democrats to work together, for America to engage the world and for the nation to quit its addiction to oil will sound to many skeptics like Barry Bonds calling for an end to steroid use in baseball.
It was not Bush's failure to solve these problems over the course of the first five years of his presidency that required him to highlight them in his State of the Union address, his critics insist; it was Bush's contributions to these problems that elevated each to a matter of significance. This was the part of the speech that really struck me. For Bush to be calling for non-partisan and civil behavior in Congress is patently absurd since those around him have worked so hard over the past 5 years to make it as partisan as possible. Jay
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Post #243,140
2/1/06 1:12:06 PM
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I particularly like the request for a Line-Item Veto....
gee, it's not like we tried that before.
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Post #243,144
2/1/06 1:46:37 PM
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Yeah because it's so disrupting to veto the whole bill.
Maybe that's why he's never done so.
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Post #243,196
2/1/06 10:21:53 PM
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Better idea
States (many of them) only allow legislation appropriating funds to include one line item. Makes it an easy accept/reject proposal..as opposed to the current desire of taking these initiatives that have 27 good things and to get them passed you have to add 5 bad things to get the 7 extra votes.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #243,204
2/1/06 11:24:04 PM
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I like
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
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Post #243,207
2/2/06 12:22:13 AM
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California ballot measures are like that.
If something wins, but someone else takes it to court and the court says it's really more than one thing - it's void.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #243,227
2/2/06 8:38:18 AM
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"If I Were President"
I always thought one of the first things I'd do is tell Congress that I would automatically veto anything with more than one item. If they wanted the sloppy big pork enough they'd have to get the votes to override.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #243,229
2/2/06 9:22:43 AM
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Point missed....
the line-item veto was passed (and Clinton had it). It went to the Supreme Court and was struck down.
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Post #243,233
2/2/06 9:40:09 AM
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No. I know it was rejected.
And it would be rejected again, IMO.
My suggestion removes the need for it at all.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #243,242
2/2/06 10:17:32 AM
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Agreement....your point is very well thought out.
It's a shame that the President didn't offer that request in the SOTU...and instead asked for something that would likely be rejected again.
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Post #243,250
2/2/06 10:32:56 AM
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Unfortunately, there are ways around it.
E.g. [link|http://www.rules.house.gov/archives/96-996.htm|State Techniques to Blunt the Governor's Item-Veto Power] (from 1996): Legislators and legislative committees at the state level have used various tactics to counteract, blunt, or neutralize the governor's item-veto power. There's always ways around such things - especially when it's in the interests of the powerful members of appropriations committees to have the ability to specify funding for pet projects. Probably the best solution to the earmarks problem is a requirement for a balanced budget. But we know how popular that is... Cheers, Scott.
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Post #243,253
2/2/06 10:47:11 AM
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A balanced budget is bad fiscal policy
You really do want a government to run a deficit in bad years.
Think about it. In bad years it is the safety net for a lot of people. And tax revenues are going to be down because it is a bad year. That means that you lose money.
However you also want to run a surplus in good years so that it isn't a problem to run a deficit from time to time. (Which is the half that politicians like to ignore.)
So in the long run you want government's budget to balance. But it is a really, really bad idea to make it balance every year.
Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
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Post #243,260
2/2/06 11:03:53 AM
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As an absolute, yes.
I agree that the government needs to have tools to even out the business cycle, especially when a crash appears imminent.
However, one needs to have some mechanism to control spending. In other words, we need to have some definition of "bad years" and "good years". Or we need something like the EU's policy of having member countries [link|http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4119282.stm|commit to having budget deficits of < 3% of GDP]. Yes, it's fuzzy (Germany has gone over that limit, as have France, Italy, Portugal...), so it's no silver bullet either.
As it stands now, there's almost no constraint on spending by the federal government. The opposition party doesn't have the votes to impact the budget in Congress, and the president has never vetoed anything. Some sort of statutory requirement, with teeth, is needed. Even the Clinton-era [link|http://www.reason.com/rauch/021305.shtml|offsets] would help greatly.
Not that I expect it to happen any time soon.... :-(
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #243,308
2/2/06 7:02:36 PM
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"Balanced over every 7 year period" could work.
Number randomly chosen to be fairly short but longer than most business cycles.
Ramping up by staying balanced from the start to the present. So the first year is balanced. The first + second are balanced and so on until the 8'th year.
Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
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Post #243,412
2/4/06 11:07:54 AM
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I like it.
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Post #243,263
2/2/06 11:22:11 AM
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Not an item veto
thats a different setup. WV and other states allow only 1 appropriation per bill. No need to line item veto...since there is only one line item.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #243,265
2/2/06 11:32:16 AM
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It mentions, in passing, cases like that. :-)
There are ways around that too: Some states take details out of public laws and place them in unofficial and informal documents, such as committee or subcommittee reports. The purpose of these documents is to give guidance to agencies on how a lump sum should be spent. Although the documents are advisory and legally non-binding, agencies normally comply. In Michigan, after the governor threatened to veto a provision granting a waiver for college tuition to Native Americans, the legislature rolled the funds into another account and reached an understanding with the agency head, by letter, that it use the funds to waive the tuition. There was no legislative language for the governor to veto. I'm sure there are similar things that can happen in WV. Cheers, Scott.
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Post #243,273
2/2/06 1:12:08 PM
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Sure. It does make it harder to do, though
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #243,421
2/4/06 11:50:28 AM
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Not really
Seems like the budgetory version of security through obscurity.
Those that know about the loopholes can abuse them, those that don't are abused.
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Post #243,151
2/1/06 3:42:32 PM
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I liked the "we're winning" line.
Peter
[link|http://www.no2id.net/|Don't Let The Terrorists Win]
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Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
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Post #243,269
2/2/06 12:30:50 PM
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I can't bear to hear/look at him - wake me for next election
"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
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Post #243,317
2/2/06 9:04:32 PM
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I have to look at him.
The same way I look at a toilet when I'm done.
Alex
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell
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