{"id":1016,"date":"2008-11-13T18:21:46","date_gmt":"2008-11-13T18:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/?p=1016"},"modified":"2008-11-13T18:21:46","modified_gmt":"2008-11-13T18:21:46","slug":"your-congress-at-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/?p=1016","title":{"rendered":"Your Congress At Work&#8230;.."},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Your%20Congress%20At%20Work.....\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>&#8230; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2008\/11\/12\/AR2008111202846_pf.html\">or not<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In the six weeks since lawmakers approved the Treasury&#8217;s massive bailout of financial firms, the government has poured money into the country&#8217;s largest banks, recruited smaller banks into the program and repeatedly widened its scope to cover yet other types of businesses, from insurers to consumer lenders&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Yet for all this activity, no formal action has been taken to fill the independent oversight posts established by Congress when it approved the bailout to prevent corruption and government waste. Nor has the first monitoring report required by lawmakers been completed, though the initial deadline has passed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Congress not providing oversight????\u00a0 Hey, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/press\/events\/ev073008a.cfm\">at<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aclu.org\/womensrights\/violence\/34426prs20080311.html\">least<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foreignaffairs.org\/20061101faessay85607\/norman-j-ornstein-thomas-e-mann\/when-congress-checks-out.html\">they&#8217;re<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foundingbloggers.com\/wordpress\/2008\/09\/devestating-video-faulting-dems-for-the-fannie-failure\/\">consistent<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Wasn&#8217;t the inclusion of oversite mechanisms touted as one of the improvements over the first bail-out bill? The extra pork was labeled &#8220;an unfortunate byproduct&#8221; of the process, but twenty-to-one says that most of that money has already been spent. Anyway, the reason there is no oversight is&#8230;.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Some lawmakers and their aides fear that <strong>political squabbling<\/strong> on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/ac2\/related\/topic\/Capitol+Hill?tid=informline\">Capitol Hill<\/a> and <strong>bureaucratic logjams<\/strong> could delay their work for months. Meanwhile, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/ac2\/related\/topic\/U.S.+Congressional+Budget+Office?tid=informline\">Congressional Budget Office<\/a>, which also has some oversight responsibilities, <strong>is worried about the difficulty of hiring people who can understand the intensely complicated financial work involved<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Political squabbling?<strong> <\/strong>Bureaucratic logjams???<strong> <\/strong> I didn&#8217;t realize Congress was auditioning for the new FOX reality show &#8220;So, You Think You&#8217;re A Comedian!&#8221;. I especially love the last reason. You mean <em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">not one of the millionaires on Capital Hill<\/span><\/em> knows a capable accountant? Why not hire Hank Paulson? I bet he <strong>can understand the intensely complicated financial work involved<\/strong>&#8230;. Oh, he&#8217;s the guy in charge of the program? Never Mind.<\/p>\n<p>Once again, the &#8220;Do Nothing&#8221; Congress lives up to their name. This time though, they&#8217;ve far surpassed even my extremely low expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Your%20Congress%20At%20Work.....\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>&#8230; or not. In the six weeks since lawmakers approved the Treasury&#8217;s massive bailout of financial firms, the government has poured money into the country&#8217;s largest banks, recruited smaller banks into the program and repeatedly widened its scope to cover yet other types of businesses, from insurers to consumer lenders&#8230;. Yet for all this activity, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}