Gov't funding

The house bill passed last night funding the government for nine more months(!) included some amazing last minute additions.

Individual limits on campaign contributions were raised from $32,400 to $324,000.

Restrictions preventing banks from gambling on derivatives with publicly secured funds were lifted.

A line was added preventing the legalization of recreational marijuana in Washington DC even though it was approved by 70.7% of voters last month.

Unfuckingbelievable.

Whatever happened to the president's line item veto?

The president has never had a line item veto.

He should.  If the Congress won't give it to him it should be put up to a vote of the people.

This bullshit of slipping in special interest giveaways at the last minute on rushed government funding bills has got to stop.

If I was president, I'd let the government shut down before I opened up taxpayers to another big bank bailout.  And I would make sure no public employee got paid while the government was shuttered.  No back pay either!

Elizabeth Fucking Warren for President.

I made a mistake. Congress did pass a line-item veto bill during Clinton's presidency. The line-item veto was later declared unconstitutional by SCOTUS.

I think it's a bad idea. Imagine Bush with such power. What should be sought is the elimination of the special-interest bullshit in bills.

No riders?  That'd be hard to police but a good idea in principle.

The long-term effect of a line item veto would be the same -- unrelated riders wouldn't be attached to bills if the president could take them out. They'd still be subject to a 2/3 majority override.

If each piece of legislation had to stand or fall on its own, passing the House and the Senate and the President, we wouldn't get these abortions of democracy where something NOBODY wants -- except Citibank -- get written into law because the bill they're attached to is too important and too rushed to go back to committee.

Elizabeth Warren was on NPR this morning talking about what a terrible thing it was that Citigroup wrote the part of the bill that repealed the derivatives provision, and JPMorgan Chase head Jamie Dimon personally lobbied Congress for passage.. Where is the citizen outrage? Where are the riots in the streets? Why aren't journalists pummeling Congress over this, why isn't the representative who inserted this provision up on impeachment hearings?

NoCoPilot wrote:

Where is the citizen outrage?  Where are the riots in the streets?  Why aren't journalists pummeling Congress over this, why isn't the representative who inserted this provision up on impeachment hearings?

That you have to ask those questions shows just how far down the toilet this country has fallen.