Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLastBoyScout
Maybe he could propose real reform instead of announce that he's going to initiate the biggest pissing match of all time with congress.
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Sure - that will work great!
McCain: You all need to stop earmarks.
Congress: That's how we keep getting re-elected. Get bent. We'll keep earmarking, and we'll keep doing it under cover like we do now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLastBoyScout
Earmarks contain some unnecessary spending and some essential spending. You can't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
A constructive solution to earmarks: just off the top of my head would be to create a separate legislative channel/designation for them. Instead of being tacked on to unrelated legislation, the earmarks could be evaluated on their own merit and packaged together with like expenditures... then put to vote.
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Just off the top of your head, does the President sent the agenda in Congress? Formulate the rules in the House and Senate?
If not, don't you think this is perhaps an issue for those who do?
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLastBoyScout
Yes, the POTUS has veto power, but announcing to use it procedurally is an abuse of that power IMO. If John McCain would champion and sponsor a bipartisan effort to pass legislative reform and push it publicly it would place much more pressure on congress to get it done than would compiling a weekly "Most Wanted" list for the biggest requesters of earmarks.
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The Congress has had
decades to bring about legislative reform.
And you see what they've done on the issue, right?
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLastBoyScout
It's a simplistic, combative, and destructive way to approach the issue. It's not solving the problem... it would make it worse. Legislators have legitimate earmarks to pass. Their not all frivolous.... what's broken about their passage is the process... not the entirety of their content.
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And again, who controls the process? The legislature or the executive branch?
Matt