(upon closer reading of your question) And yes, it’s that I don’t trust President Bush to be nonpartisan in his appointments. I’m not old enough to have been thinking critically about President Clinton when he was in office (does that make you feel like a dinosaur? :p), so I can’t comment on his partisan/nonpartisan tendencies in appointments.
So what’s the alternative? It’s hard to imagine giving someone who isn’t elected the power to cut programs. Anyone who’s elected will tend to have a “partisan” viewpoint. Anyone who has a brain has a view, really. Others will disagree with it and call it “biased”.
I suppose the current method is that Congress can introduce bills to cut anything. As a practical matter, though, this is likely to get little support, as it’s hard to make a name for yourself as a stopper of things, even if those things are lame.
The president already has the power to present a budget in which programs he does not like receive no funding. Why he would need a “sunset commission” or “rainbow commission” or some other warm and fuzzy sounding commission to do something he can already do, if he has the balls for it, is beyond me.
I’ll take a stab at this, but my knowledge of the workings of my own government is pathetic at best. Government class in my school was only half a year and fell, unfortunately, during my slacker phase.
The president cannot simply write up and pass his own budget. It has to go through congress much as their budgets have to be signed by the president. Therefore any cuts he wants to make, balls or no, have to go through others.
This commission seems to have the power to just stop programs cold without having it go through any voting and whatnot. With the members being appointed by the president, it is a political weapon disguised as a common sense measure.
If this were bipartisan and not at the whims of the sitting president, I would be all for it. Since this is entirely up to the whims of the sitting president, I’m really agin’ it. And yes, that is regardless of who the president is.
The first thing I thought of when reading the OP is that this would likely be an unconstitutional delegation of legislative powers to the executive, thus violating the separation of powers. On reading the article, I see that the same point is made there.
Abstractly, A: I like it. B: I think we should do the same for laws. Keep Congress busy passing laws that they need, not making new ones.
I’m a democrat and I don’t really see a problem with this. I’d like it* better * if it were a Democratic President proposing it. Or any President other than Bush… but I still don’t see a problem.
sigh
It doesn’t exist. According to Dopers again and again in those threads it’s “global climate change”. Not warming. That theory was busted out so the nomenclature was changed.
Try again dipshit. :rolleyes:
You still didn’t explain
a) How liberalism is a religion.
b) How “left-wing fundies… make Phelps look almost reasonable[.]”
Try again, asswipe.
The left-wing fundies dive into liberalism to the same extent that right-wing fundies dive into the Bible to spew hate. Same thing, both can be boiled down to philosophies.
You’ve proven your ignorance by trying to get a cheap shot in about the global warming thing when it’s already been shown to me that it’s really climate change. Big difference. But you want to keep your preconceived notions about what you think I am and how I think, which equates you to Phelps in that no matter what happens, your opinions rule all and are never wrong. I’ve changed my stance on the climate debate, but you’re hate for me is so rabid change appears impossible.
I’m done with this hijack. Try something else.
:non-winking Wally:
You still haven’t equated liberalism to a religion. But since this hijack is over, I guess you won’t be responding to me.
I did respond, dumb-ass. Try to use an extra cell or two to read past the most literal interpretation of my post.
I’d use my favorite insult here, but I have too much repect for douchebags.
I found the following text directly from the horse’s mouth.
I submit that the word “bipartisan” means that this commission will not be chosen directly by the President with no Congressional overview. Congress will also establish the schedule of review, and has the ability to reverse the commission’s decision.
I just don’t have the words at my fingertips for what I think about Rolling Stone’s spin on this idea.
Well, I’m of two minds here.
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It isn’t a bad idea for all federal spending to be reviewed on a regular basis. Clearly, we’re at a point where programs continue on their own inertia. I think we can all agree on that.
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This particular concept is political cowardice on the part of our elected leaders. They already have this ability…they simply don’t have the courage to exercise it. It’s a sign that the system is broken and in need of replacement.
Good Lord, people, how many of you have forgotten your Civics 101 class? Congress reviews every Federal program – whether you want to call it pork or not – every single year. It is not as though these programs are somehow on autopilot, receiving funds through some automated process.
Each year, the President’s budget proposes the elimination of every single pork barrel project that Congress funds. Congress takes that budget, makes changes, and refunds programs through the annual appropriations bills. In so doing, the President’s budget priorities are rejected, modified, or even sometimes accepted. These bills are then passed by Congress and signed by the President. The idea that there is nobody who reviews these programs is laughable propaganda.
As intimated by the article, what this proposal really is, is a direct assault on the separation of powers created by the Constitution. The Constituition says that Congress – not the President, not a so-called independent commission – holds the power of the purse. This proposal, as explained by the article, is nothing less than an attempt to allow the President to override Federal law (in the form of appropriations bills) through the use of a so-called independent commission. Well, where in the Constitution is there established a Fourth Branch of government made up by so-called experts appointed to serve the pleasure of the President, empowered to override Congress when the President asks them to? How on earth can someone say they support the Constitution and, at the same time, make a proposal that explicitly undoes the checks and balances and separation of powers that it establishes? It boggles my mind.
If you don’t like pork – and there’s a hell of a lot of people who don’t – then vote for candidates for Congress who don’t like pork, either. The people of Oklahoma just did, and now they have their own pork-fighter, Tom Coburn, who is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with John McCain. But for God’s sake, why would anyone advocate undermining Constitutional principles simply because of a few million dollars here and there that the President doesn’t want spent?
I think Ravenman (and others) hit the nail on the head. I think it’s also worth asking if congeress have the time to deal with the potential work of fighting over whether or not to keep a program the committee decides to scrap?
Ravenman, where in the text of the budget does it say the President is appointing the members of the commission?
Not true in the least; many federal programs on on “autopilot.” Some of them even intentionally. In the federal budget, there is a category of funding called “relatively uncontrolled spending.” Some have estimated that spending of this type makes up 90% of the total. Uncontrolled spending is money that’s been earmarked for certain programs in pervious budgets by previously passed laws and which the folks considering a current budget proposal have no authority to modify. Changing the current spending for programs of this type, require independent modification of the Act which authorized it.
And to suggest that Congress reviews in committee, or in camera, every line item which represents a program on which federal monies are spent in the budget is wholly laughable. The federal budget contains thousands upon thousands of line items and often weighs more than 30 pounds. When a final budget is voted on, there is generally only a couple copies available for the members to pass around and peruse due to printing limitations. There is no one who can with a straight face claim to know the details of any particular budget at the time it is being voted upon. The scope of doing so is well outside human ability.
Jonathan Chance is spot on. This proposal, while valuable, is the result of years and years of political cowardice, most particularly on the part of Congress.
I challenge you to find any document from OMB, CBO, or Congress that authorizes, appropriates, or provides mandatory funding to “relatively uncontrolled spending” programs. That term is a work of pure fiction. There are mandatory programs (for which appropriations are never made, such as your Social Security checks), discretionary programs (for which appropriations are required each year), and there are mandatory appropriated accounts (like VA health care, which is a mandatory benefit that uses appropriated funds). Anyone who claims that Congress has no legal ability to alter the authorization or funding for any of these programs is full of shit and doesn’t know what they are talking about. You have apparently swallowed this complete load of crap hook, line and sinker.
As far as Congress being unable to review all aspects of budget proposals, I assume you’re trying to make the case that pork barrel spending is not reviewed by Congress. But there is a good argument to be made that pork barrel projects receive more scrutiny by Congress than any other types of programs, because the members supporting those projects have to fight to get them into appropriations bills, because those projects are not funded in the Adminsitration’s budget. Those members of the appropriations committees who write the bills are well aware of what goes into the bills that they draft, even if other members of congress do not understand what may be in there. In any case, people like McCain and Coburn have built a name for themselves by going through these bills, line by line, and making speeches about the objectionable material in them. Just because 98% of Congress doesn’t care what is in these bills does not mean that the information is hidden from them. If it is possible that these pork barrel projects can be hidden, just how do you think that McCain, Coburn, and Citizens Against Government Waste can find them, huh?
The second line of the OP. What’s more, on page 16 of the volume of the President’s budget entitled “Analytical Perspectives,” it is made clear that the commission would work only for the White House: “The [Sunset] Commission would consider and revise Administration proposals to retain, restructure, or terminate programs.” Nothing about the sunset commission being accountable to Congress.
You mean the quote from Rolling Stone in the OP? That’s RS’s little take on it, it is not definitive. Neither is your quote, it says that it will consider and revise the Admin’s proposals, not that it is appointed or accountable to anyone.
The trump card here is that Congress, per the direct quote from Bush’s Budget, has the authority to establish the schedule, and has the authority to override the commission’s recommendations in all cases.