Let's SLOW down major legislation...

The Founding Fathers designed our government to balance the passions of the masses with the discipline of good governance through the makeup of the Legislative(House and Senate), Executive and Judicial branches. But unfortunately, our legislative branch of government is broken. Why do I say that?

The Federal government has recently pushed through spending "express" style on stimulus to pass a laundry list of liberal spending priorities that have waited for decades. As of May 16, despite the legislative "emergency", only 6 percent of stimulus money had been spend. So what was the hurry?

Next up is cap and trade. And healthcare. And Democrats are planning to ram them through as well. At some point, some statesmanlike Senators or House members may appear in that caucus. But I am not holding my breath.

It is time to slow down. And make any future legislation right, not expedient. Haste makes waste. And this Congress is proof of it.

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Outrage - Don't ask for whom the bell tolls...

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Read the bill!

I usually don't forward messages I get from the various public interest groups but since I already wrote on the problem of our congress passing a bill that they didn't bother to read first. Repreentatives that don't read legislation are not representatives at all-they are party shills. The Sunlight foundation has started a web site called www.readthebill.org. If you think that at the minimum, all legislation should have 72 hours in plain view before it is voted on, you should watch this video and go to the site and sign the petition.

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Biden is 'tanking' worse than the economy

There was a headline on the Drudge report yesterday referring to Joe Biden telling George Stephanopoulus that the economy was tanking. From ABC news:

Vice President-Elect Joe Biden said the U.S. economy is in danger of "absolutely tanking" and will need a second stimulus package in the $600-billion to $700-billion range.

"The economy is in much worse shape than we thought it was in," Biden told me during an exclusive interview -- his first since becoming vice president-elect-- to air this Sunday on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

"There is no short run other than keeping the economy from absolutely tanking. That's the only short run," Biden told me.

The interesting thing about Biden's comment is that there is no interesting thing. His analysis is based on nothing and contains no reference to anything intellectual as the basis for his line of reasoning. Try this quote:

Every single person I've spoken to agrees with every major economist. There is going to be real significant investment, whether it's $600 billion or more, or $700 billion, the clear notion is, it's a number no one thought about a year ago," he said.

"Every single person" agrees with "every major economist". This statement is the classic Joe Biden rubbish. Doesn't he remember that a child he told his mother that "everybody" was doing it, and she probably responded with "name three". And his sweeping generalization wouldn't be as bad if this were not so important and his statements so obviously wrong.

The Volokh Conspiracy refers in this post to a summary of economists and their opinion of the original congressional bailout. As you will clearly note in this article and this document from the leading economists, there is no clear agreement. And that was in October. I guarantee you that the "agreement" has severely deteriorated since then.

While Biden's childish reasoning may be acceptable in a debate of global warming "everyone believes it and if you don't you are a neanderthal" among his ultra liberal social circuit, it doesn't cut it as a Vice President-elect. He better figure out soon that while he can make up stories when debating a Republican Vice Presidential candidate who the press hates and get away with it, he can't do it in the real world.

Note to Joe: Grow up and get serious.

Read the ABC article here.

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