The pressure to legislate
This article claims there will be enormous pressure on the Democrats to produce legislation if they take back the Senate. Frankly, I'm not so sure.
In my own case, at least, the first and foremost priority is not to pass new legislation. It's to STOP Bush from pushing any more damaging crap down our throats. In so far as the Senate goes, it's to STOP Bush's court appointees, particularly any Supreme Court nominations he may get to make.
The second priority is to begin the whithering investigations that almost certainly will lead to indictments of many high level Bush appointees, will tarnish the image of the Thuglican Party for years, perhaps decades, to come, forcing them back into minority party status, and may well lead to impeachment proceedings.
The third priority is to try to bring a stop to Bush's irresponsible antics abroad by bringing some control to the purse strings.
The fourth priority is to finally establish some oversight into what the administration is doing and how it is doing them by bringing some transparency back to government.
Finally, the last priority is to try to pass legislation that will undo, in so far as possible, the terrible things that this administration has already done. Reinstate taxes on the rich. Reinstate programs for the poor and needy. Reinstate habeas corpus. Stop torture. Stop warrantless wiretapping. While these things are not low priorities in their own right, there is not a chance that we will have veto-proof majorities in both Houses, so none of these things will get done while Bush remains in power. Since they won't get done, I don't rank them high on my priority list.
And, finally, I just want to add one final thought. I suppose it's in the nature of things for legislators to want to legislate. It's their job. But, this urge to place their mark on something often leads to people trying to fix things that aren't broken. It's frequently better just to do nothing than to fix something that's not broken.
I used to see this tendency regularly back when I did a significant amount of teaching for large corporations in their executive development programs. Everytime a new program director would come in (and, in many companies, this was a regular event every year or two as a new person was rotated through the position), the new director would want to change things in order to put his/her mark on the program. Sometimes, these changes were useful, but more often they were just changes for the sake of change and often were counter-productive.
Right now, the most important thing we can do, in my view, is bring the march over the cliff to a screeching halt, and to a large degree that means shutting down the legislative program of Bush, not producing new legislation.
In my own case, at least, the first and foremost priority is not to pass new legislation. It's to STOP Bush from pushing any more damaging crap down our throats. In so far as the Senate goes, it's to STOP Bush's court appointees, particularly any Supreme Court nominations he may get to make.
The second priority is to begin the whithering investigations that almost certainly will lead to indictments of many high level Bush appointees, will tarnish the image of the Thuglican Party for years, perhaps decades, to come, forcing them back into minority party status, and may well lead to impeachment proceedings.
The third priority is to try to bring a stop to Bush's irresponsible antics abroad by bringing some control to the purse strings.
The fourth priority is to finally establish some oversight into what the administration is doing and how it is doing them by bringing some transparency back to government.
Finally, the last priority is to try to pass legislation that will undo, in so far as possible, the terrible things that this administration has already done. Reinstate taxes on the rich. Reinstate programs for the poor and needy. Reinstate habeas corpus. Stop torture. Stop warrantless wiretapping. While these things are not low priorities in their own right, there is not a chance that we will have veto-proof majorities in both Houses, so none of these things will get done while Bush remains in power. Since they won't get done, I don't rank them high on my priority list.
And, finally, I just want to add one final thought. I suppose it's in the nature of things for legislators to want to legislate. It's their job. But, this urge to place their mark on something often leads to people trying to fix things that aren't broken. It's frequently better just to do nothing than to fix something that's not broken.
I used to see this tendency regularly back when I did a significant amount of teaching for large corporations in their executive development programs. Everytime a new program director would come in (and, in many companies, this was a regular event every year or two as a new person was rotated through the position), the new director would want to change things in order to put his/her mark on the program. Sometimes, these changes were useful, but more often they were just changes for the sake of change and often were counter-productive.
Right now, the most important thing we can do, in my view, is bring the march over the cliff to a screeching halt, and to a large degree that means shutting down the legislative program of Bush, not producing new legislation.
posted by walldon | 4:23 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home