Sunday Discussion Group

July 31, 2005

It was quite a week for Republican law-making. Apparently, upon realizing that they were about to head home to see constituents over their August recess, and they couldn’t point to any real legislative accomplishments since intervention in the Terri Schiavo tragedy, GOP lawmakers passed a flurry of conservative wish-list items. We saw:

* an energy bill that only ExxonMobil could love;

* a transportation bill with more pork than a pig farm (John McCain called it “terrifying in its fiscal consequences and disappointing for the lack of fiscal discipline”);

* a tragically flawed trade bill;

* and the Senate, responding to demands from the NRA, passed a bill to protect firearm manufacturers from almost any litigation at all.

Today’s discussion group topic is: which of these measures is the worst?

It’s all bad legislation in my opinion, but for all the hoopla most of it will have very little effect on American citizens. Shrub’s really big goal of privatizing Social Security – the one on which he was going spend all that “political capital” – remains unmet even after his embarrassing 60- then 120-day traveling dog and pony show with lackeys-only admissions and staging so bad even the press lapdogs finally quit going.

We’ll never know what he had to give away to obtain this last week’s “legislative victories”. We do know that Bush and his Congress are about as low in public esteem as it’s possible to be. My guess is that those members up for re-election soon will get an earful during their vacation (within which Bush will appoint Bolton). The only movement in the Iraq quagmire seems to be toward getting out with as much face as we can pretend to save. The attempts to trash Fitzgerald failed, and the the grand jury stuff will be emerging fairly soon. All in all, it doesn’t bode well for anything Cheney (oh, sorry, Bush) wants to do from now on.

If I had to pick the worst of this miserable list, I guess it would be the energy bill. My only reason for selecting it is that the rest of them seem either not very important to most people (the NRA one) or a continuation of the crap we’re used to from Congress (pork). They all provide tasty tidbits of election rhetoric if only the Dems are smart enough to cook them up.

  • CB, it’s too difficult to pick just one when this is all a part of an orchestrated Rethug plan to drift us further away from representative democracy and closer to one operated by a single party devoted to religious and capitalist fanatics. It is scary, frustrating, dangerous and sad.

    Instead, how about a “Worst Week of the 109th Congress – So Far” Award? Although the Schiavo mess may clearly lead in its implications for the possibility of a Constitutional crisis, this week takes the cake for ignoring the best interests of the American people. If you throw in the document stonewalling on Roberts and Bolton, then this week wins the “booby prize”!

    P.S. My apologies to boobs everywhere, anatomical and behavioral! 🙂

  • I think the energy bill will end up being the biggest political loser for Bush. There’s all this talk that it’s going to lower gas prices, but it won’t. When people are paying $2.65 at Thanksgiving on their way to grandma’s house, how many will be glad for this “landmark” bill?

  • It’s the energy bill. The bill does nothing to bring down gas prices in the near term, *and* does next to nothing to reduce American dependence upon foreign oil in the long term. It represents a gruesome, but hardly surprising, abdication of responsibility on the part of the Republicans, ready as always to service their donors rather than the public.

  • Worse for the American people or worse politically? CAFTA gets my vote on the worst for the American people. I’m hoping that the Senate passing the pro gunmaker legislation over military funding will cause some really bad political fallout for the Republicans, but my bet is that the Republicans have something up their sleeve on this one.

  • The firearms immunity legislation is the worst. The Constitution guarantees the right to a jury trial for all claims in excess of $20. It does not make exceptions for any particular sectors of the business community – – in fact, the inclusion of the right to jury trials in civil cases establishes original intent that no one should get a free pass for wrongdoing in the civil justice system merely by virtue of who they are. If firearms manufacturers are able to claim an exemption from liability, how about automobile manufacturers? Or pharmaceutical manufacturers? (Whoops, they’re already on the way to getting that exemption.) Or insurance companies? Or doctors? (Whoops again.)

    What exactly does the Seventh Amendment mean, if we can pass legislation that trumps it by immunizing whoever pays the most money into campaign coffers?

  • What I find amazing is that the baffoons have managed to shaft everyone. There is CAFTA, to help insure that their red state base all work at Walmart and collect subsidies (which continue to get cut).

    There is the transportation bill, that sticks it to the blue states, who largely pick up the tab, but receive the smallest share of the pork.

    Just in case everyone’s financial future isn’t already ruined by tax cuts to the rich and two costly wars, we have the Energy Bill…

    I was going to make a quip about it all being part of Moon’s master plan, but it is all too depressing. These slimebags really are too disgusting for words.

    -jjf

  • I voye for CAFTA being the worst, since it’s basically enacting a treaty, and it will be the hardest to undo.

  • How can they be proud of any of these things? How can they go home to brag about what great things they have accomplished?
    What percentage of republicans do you think these bills are good for? maybe 10% What in the hell is wrong with the rest of them to make them think they are getting something?
    Off subject and I apoligize. What percentage of the US population know’s what this administration is doing? repubs ? democrats ? so many people I talk to just believe all this crap they keep hearing over and over from the repub machine
    The energy bill gets my vote for robbing the taxpayer. Cafta for destroying people’s lifes.

  • No contest. Not even close. The energy bill.

    The world faces two crippling problems: global
    warming, and diminishing supplies of oil. If
    something isn’t done, you’re talking economic
    disaster, environmental disaster, and possible
    war over the control of existing petroleum
    reserves.

    There was a golden opportunity to craft a bill
    which dealt meaningfully with these problems,
    but Congress and the President flubbed it
    miserably.

    We will all pay for this egregious failure.

  • They’re all soooooooo horrible. But for me the choice was clear: the energy bill. The others are flawed because they waste money, they take away rights, they hurt our economy. However, rights can be restored (eventually) and money can be re-earned. Damage to the environment is PERMANENT.

    Don’t get me wrong – I’m not ignoring the suffering that will result from continuing poverty in Central America and here at home; from waste of money that could have been spent on a host of social ills; and from all the inevitable problems associated with our slide into blatant kleptocracy.

    But those things all are wounds to the country – over time, we as a country can recover (although individuals may not). An energy bill that does nothing to address our ecologicaly suicidal energy policy maims us in ways that will never heal.

  • I’m with Ed Stephens, while none of this is good, it really doesn’t amount to much. Certainly, it would be better to establish policies which will begin to reverse greeen house gases sooner rather than lattter. However, there is no reason to expect Bush and the Republican congress to do this. The energy bill itself will not prevent us from taking on the problem once Democrats gain controll of the government. So too with the other legislation. It is all correctalble in the medium term.

    I don’t even see a problem with the Bush gang spinning the passage of these laws as a great victory. I think things are being to unravel for them, as evidenced by Bush’s ever decreasing approval ratings. Nothing in these laws will change that. We must keep the pressure on, but the tide is turning in our favor.

  • Okay, I’m going to weigh in here again today, and vote for the energy bill as the worst of the week. While the comments here about that are dead-on accurate and insightful, I haven’t seen anyone mention the worst aspect of the energy bill (and there are plenty that are bad for consumers as well as the environment).

    The worst aspect is the elimination of the regulatatory structure under the Public Utilites Holding Company Act (PUHCA). Passed in the early years of the New Deal, PUHCA overcame the serious concentration of enegy distribution in the hands of a very few outfits, and subjected them to ongoing regulatory scrutiny to prevent the abuses by them again. PUHCA limited who could own, directly or through related enterprises, the various pieces of energy production, storage, and distribution to consumers.

    For more than 50 years, PUHCA did what it was designed to do: keep crooks out, prevent stupid actions by those who wanted to venture outside the straight energy business, and required energy companies to operate with prudent and fair management, accounting, and pricing practices. Unfortunately, in the late 1980s and into the 1990s, several state legislatures and regulatory agencies, as well as the F.E.R.C. (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission), started granting “PUHCA waivers,” otherwise known as “deregulation.”

    “Deregulation” is a part of the Rethug’s holy grail, to get rid of all vestiges of the New Deal regulatory protections that keep capitalism in check. The PUHCA waivers led to disasters, the most well known of which is Enron’s collosal fraud and greed that destroyed a healthy business, its owners and employees, and of course its customers. There are other disasters resulting from PUHCA waivers too, notably Wyoming Power, which went from having the lowest electricity rates in the country to — after the debacle of selling its assets to invest in fiber optics telecommunications and going bankrupt — now having some of the highest in the country.

    Now, with this damnable energy bill, ALL of electrical regulatory oversight will be gone along with the limitations on concentration of ownership, and the New Deal is no more. We are therefore left with the law of the jungle, true “caveat emptor” (let the buyer beware) — without any tools or governmental assistance to level the playing field between those who supply a product essential to life, and those who require it. Yup, the Rethug’s wet dream on their way to full re-possession of the American Dream and the realization of their Quest for the Holy Grail.

    Yes, THIS is a disaster for Americans, in addition to all of the other flaws and evils of the enegy bill. What a disaster.

  • Why do the smarmy press and media always
    talk in terms of Bush having a good week
    or a bad week, instead of America having
    a good or a bad week as a result of his
    stewardship?

    I mean, they act as if the guy’s in a bicycle
    race or something, to be cheered on,
    instead of working for the American people,
    to be judged by how well he has served us.

    The Bush agenda is anathematic to the
    vast majority of Americans. So why
    do they praise him so for getting what
    he wants done instead of what we want
    done?

  • I think all the new legislation is excellent. Having watched the Democrats commit ritual suicide in every election since 1996, I’ve reached the conclusion that the only effective antidote to Republican policies is allowing “conservatives” everything they want.

    Only then will Americans realize the consequences of turning the keys over to incompetent, flag-waving ideologues. In fact, I hope the Republicans bring back prohibition, slavery, bear-baiting and witch-burning. And the draft.

  • A cornucopia of deceit and pure, self-serving stupidity. How to decide? .

    First, thanks A.L. for circling back and raising the subject of Pooka, (PUCHA). RepubCo’s noise machine has created so much racket that this significant regulatory instrument went down almost without making a sound. A completely intended outcome no doubt. Even the negative daily news for the bad guys adds to the fog RepubCo thrives on.

    My vote for worst would also be the energy bill because the tentacles of energy are threaded though so many other global snafu’s. Bush’s War, with it’s own Medusa head of snakes, can be laid at the doorstep of Big Energy. The undermining and corruption of foreign, (and domestic, come to think of it), governments and the degradation of the global environment in the ongoing pursuit of “cheap” oil is energy related, (the term “Blood Diamonds” has found common usage, “Blood Oil” should follow suit). Our homegrown auto industries are sinking, partly because the collusion between Big Oil and the auto industry perpetuates the macho, frontier mentality that gas guzzling behemoths are our birthright while Honda and Toyota cut off our legs, (tires), with forward thinking technology. For all of it’s supposed superpower badassedness, America is looking more like the folks on Easter Island who cut down all their trees without considering how much they depended on them. And Global Warming? It’s relevance is being baked and melted and hurricaned into our brains right now.

    The energy bill perpetuates the illusion that fossil based energy can be cheap, plentiful and harmless and that beneficent Big Oil is working hard with government to create rational, forward thinking, citizen positive policies. It’s a huge, expensive and globally damaging lie.

    We need NEW people in office with a fresh and less self-serving perspective.

  • Yes, AL, thanks for the reminder on the
    stealth PUHCA elimination, another
    horrible deregulatory measure to swallow.
    I focused on what wasn’t in the bill, not the
    atrocities in the bill. So little mention of
    this in the press. I didn’t know about it
    until recently. Molly Ivins wrote about it.

    A number of people have commented that
    these measures aren’t so bad in that a
    Democratic Congress can reverse them,
    beginning in 2006.

    But how? I don’t see that happening. I
    see no signs that the American people
    are ready to embrace progressive
    candidates, and that’s what it’s going
    to take.

  • I’m actually with Dubyahotep on this one. The only reason why the conservatives look as moderate as they do is because the Dems have been effective enough at stopping the GOP’s worst tendencies. But enough’s enough. If people want to think that they’re tough-ass conservatives, maybe we should give them what they want. Why should we save their asses from their own goon-headed representatives?

    I’m not saying we should do anything stupid, like let them destroy Social Security or anything; but none of this stuff is too permanent so maybe we should just let them have it. And for god’s sake, we need to make sure that we’re nowhere near these stinkers. We need to be a strong opposition, but there’s no reason to kill ourselves over it. Especially CAFTA. I don’t know too much about it, but I oppose it and I’m pretty sure it’ll hurt the GOP in the red states. And rather than run and hide, Democrat candidates need to remind voters what the Republicans really stand for.

  • I think it’s all rotten legislation, but I see the energy bill as the most short sighted. Seems to me that the Republicans boast of returning to a golden era of personal responsibility while steadily making sure that they effectively cut off the bootstraps of most Americans. I just wish I could understand how the American public continues to buy into their “vision”, but I really don’t. I wish I could understand why the Democrats aren’t screaming from the rooftops rather than trying to play nice, but I can’t. There really is no comfort for me in being able to scream one day when the chickens come home to roost after the destructive policies and legislation, “I told you so!”

  • Why choose one? It was a fire sale to invited (repub) constituants.
    Cole Porter wrote a song called Love For Sale. With this bunch, call it, Laws For Sale. It’s so brazen, that it may be even beyond the reach of ridicule. Got cash?

  • I’m with Doc Biobrain:

    “And rather than run and hide, Democrat candidates need to remind voters what the Republicans really stand for.”

    In addition, however, Democrats should remind voters what the Democratic party stands for — which may be the problem. Democrats have traditionally stood for the rights and welfare of the common man. I’m not sure the party leaders remember that, although Democrats and former Democrats do.

    One-eyed lesbian hispanic vegetarians are people too. But they aren’t the epicenter of American society. Neither are wealthy corporate campaign contributors who give most of their lucre to Republican candidates, but just enough to Democratic candidates to fund their ritual suicides.

    I’m sure I’m naive, but I can’t help believing that Democrats, or any politicians, would succeed if they just articulated reality, told the truth, and proposed reasonable policies that would benefit the greatest number of people — even if some policies required sacrifice and work. Ironically, I think, the greatest number of people — including the corporations and the one-eyed hispanic vegetarian lesbians — would be better off.

  • sparrow wrote:

    “….while steadily making sure that they effectively cut off the bootstraps of most Americans.”

    I don’t think I’ve seen it put quite that way before. It’s a useful way of turning the common “bootstraps” cliche’ on it’s head. Nice.

  • Hard to say. It seems every year they talk about how bad the Transportation bill is – so I don’t that this year’s is worse than last. As for CAFTA – some of the same rules apply. Congress like this s**t – selling out to corporate America does not keep them up at night. As for the gun and energy legislation they both sell out to corporate America so that is nothing new. All in all these three are pretty standard for what the GOP likes to go for.

    Think I am going to go for ….. just can’t make up my mind….

    The gun legislation just makes me ill. Special favor for a GOP industry… Energy legislation for companies that are pretty much GOP…. Sill can’t make up my mind every time I try and type a decision I change my mind.

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