Lurker wrote:Legislators already have the ability to strike words or lines from a bill through the ammendment process. Republicans put forth dozens of ammendments to this bill, some striking a line or a word here and there, some the entire bill. They settled on bringing one ammendment to the floor that would have struck the entire contents of the bill and replaced it with their alternative.
Can you explain how anything would get done if legislators had the ability to vote on each line of a bill the way you described? That sort of work is done in committee.
Works just fine over here. Bills must be voted on by line item, unless the bill as a whole gains unanimous acceptance. Keeps the size of the bills down (legislators don't want to be around all night) and we appear to have less crazy legal decisions than you manage to over there. Not saying we don't have any though...
As for Partha's example, claiming a single bad ruling as an example for making laws so complex that the people voting on them rely on summaries rather than the actual bill, and even summaries on the *amendments*, seems completely ridiculous. If your judges don't have any common sense then do something about that. Like I said - if you craft simple law then you give lawyers much less room to wiggle. The problem wasn't the law but that the judge bought it.
"Long and airtight" is an oxymoron. You either make a law so short that there are obviously no loopholes or you make it so long that there are no obvious loopholes. Take your pick.
For comparison sake, Australia's Renewable Energy Act is 138 single spaced pages long (over 300 pages if formatted the same way we do) and it only covers renewable energy.
The House bill takes a comprehensive look at national energy policy and makes changes in many areas. Sure, you could argue that the House bill should be split up into different components, but then it wouldn't qualify under pay-go since revenues from one component are used to pay for investments in others. By definition it's going to be a long bill.
Dd is correct about the longer the law, the more open it is to challenge. The better way is to make simple laws, and close loopholes in them when they arise.
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
Fallakin Kuvari wrote:It seems like hardly anyone in our governmental system has common sense any more.
As opposed to how brimming with common sense they've been the last 8 years.
Common sense left our leadership at around, ohh, I'd say the post-Eisenhower era. Certainly after Kennedy (with the exception of Reagan's first term, you might not agree with him, but at least he brought new thinking and vision to the office and politics)
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
Embar wrote:Dd is correct about the longer the law, the more open it is to challenge. The better way is to make simple laws, and close loopholes in them when they arise.
Yeah, but we're talking about legislation that has many different components. It's not like the thing is 1200 pages dealing with one issue and it's really wordy in an attempt to close loopholes.
Embar wrote:Common sense left our leadership at around, ohh, I'd say the post-Eisenhower era. Certainly after Kennedy (with the exception of Reagan's first term, you might not agree with him, but at least he brought new thinking and vision to the office and politics)
And Obama hasn't? You might not agree with him, but...
Obama is too new. He certainly is different from the past administration, but as of yet, he is untested. he has been riding the wave of personal popularity up to this point, but his real tests will be 1) the economy (he's not managed it so well, and his predictions of capping unemployment have proved to be false), and 2) Health care reform (there is no way to pay for it without raising taxes and taxing health care benefits, and even the CBO estimates that there would be no appreciable reduction in uninsured people for the trillion dollars spent)
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
Until that analysis comes in the current one stands. And the current one says that not much will change for the trillion dollars spent.
I also see you didn't disagree with my position that the health care revisions proposed by Obama will require both an increase in overall taxes and a special tax on health care benefits. (FYI - The unions are howling over this)
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
The goal is to save money in the long term by reducing health coverage costs; costs that will either bankrupt the government and businesses alike or leave us as the only industrialized nation without health coverage. The up front investment needed to achieve that goal will probably require some tax increases.
Lurker wrote:The goal is to save money in the long term by reducing health coverage costs; costs that will either bankrupt the government and businesses alike or leave us as the only industrialized nation without health coverage. The up front investment needed to achieve that goal will probably require some tax increases.
And it remains to be seen where those TAX INCREASES come from.
What is your opinion on taxing health benefits?
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
You have to look at why health benefits were excluded from taxation in the first place. The current system of not taxing health benefits amounts to a government subsidy of private insurance. If we can provide better and cheaper health coverage by spending that money elsewhere then we should consider it.
Lurker wrote:You have to look at why health benefits were excluded from taxation in the first place. The current system of not taxing health benefits amounts to a government subsidy of private insurance. If we can provide better and cheaper health coverage by spending that money elsewhere then we should consider it.
Except that we can't. Some entity has to be taxed to pay for universal coverage. What entity is going to be taxed Lurker?
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
I didn't dodge the question since I already answered it in the prior post. If you think we can't lower health care costs then I see why you don't understand the answer.
Embar wrote:Where will the revenues come from Lurker?
I gave you one possibility here. Some of the funding will come from reductions in Medicare spending, some from savings from lowered health care costs, some from tax increases already proposed on the top wage earners, and possibly some from taxing health benefits.
You responded that we can't lower the cost of health coverage. That's just not true. The VA, Medicare, nearly every other industrialized country... they all provide better care for less cost per covered individual than our private insurance system does.
Then why is it costing 1 trillion dollars to add just a few extra people to health care coverage Lurker?
Your arguments of "ifs and buts" fall short of reality. the health care proposal on the table will cost over a trillion dollars and cover just a few thousand more. Those aren't my numbers, those aren't Fox News numbers, those are CBO numbers.
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
