The Crooks of Capitol Hill

[hangloose]

There is no discipline, no sense of responsibility, apparently not even a love of country or sense of patriotic duty among most members of Congress, for if there were you would never get the 3,000-page, omnibus-bill abomination that is economically threatening and virtually an act of mass thievery.
Congress' first job is to manage federal spending, but it dodges the appropriations bills it is supposed to act on as if they carried dread diseases, misses its deadlines, and as the end of the year approaches, inserts long lists of pork into mammoth legislation that no one much gets a chance to read or understand.

Then, members scoot home to bathe in applause from the relatively few who benefit from their near-criminality, neglecting to mention to all the others how their tax money was misspent.

As reporters start thumbing through the legislation, stories start appearing about all the craziness - the snake-control project in Guam, the $1 million for the Norwegian American Foundation - and some chuckle while others shake their heads. Good grief, America, quit laughing, and do more than look disgusted: The $388 billion for nine of 13 areas of appropriation comes on top of a debt that must absolutely be reduced if we are to have any chance of coping with coming emergencies in Social Security and Medicare

<snip>

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_5761.shtml

[pacalo]

1. Since we can't rely on our voting process to vote them out,

we need to march up to Capitol Hill to confront Congress & demand some changes.

[Nicholas_J]

2. Of course they are crooks

The Neo-con plan it to blow the budget so badly that it will be necessary to kill all government social programs, and even worse, to put power completely back into the handsof big business, because small government would be powerless to regulate and control the multinationals. That is why supporting big government, thre bigger the better, is the only protection the average person has fronm the wolves that control the private sector. They are attempting to create a slave calass again, and George W. Bush is their boy.

They first had to divert attention from the real danger to democratic societ6y, old rich white guys, and divert it to gays and feminazi's, on group to small to be a danger to anyone, reven if they were willing to be, and the other a mythological invention of the right wing.

Congress and the Multinational work in pairs, like a team of pickpockets. One pums into you to distract you, while the other lifts your wallet.

[pfitz59]

3. My rep voted against the bill

Jay Inslee, great guy!

4. Indeed--

Land of the Free-Money--Home of the Broke
- “Full faith and credit” in US is latest domino to fall, along with dollar<br>
By Dan Spillane, The Liberty Whistle
www.libertywhistle.us

(SEATTLE) 11/30/04 - Years from now, historians will struggle to explain how so many trusted US institutions fell so quickly with the dawn of the 21st century, and the election of Mr. Bush. A series of Wall Street scandals-running for years-marked the start of a dizzying sequence of what might have been a wakeup call to the American public. Next, in short order, came major failures of US intelligence and governance at the highest level, leading to an attack on US soil, followed by a largely unfounded (and expensive) attack against Iraq. And then to top it off, record deficit spending by the American administration, even as the American public was strung along by a series of false promises-for stocks, for pensions, for wars, even for elections. Indeed, the promises made within America seemed to fall just as exports and jobs bearing the “Made in America” label tumbled.

So historians will probably find little surprise in what happened next, as the few remaining items bearing “made in America” were brought into question, and fell to the wayside. That is, faced with historically high producer inflation, rising competition, and collapsing confidence in what was once the “full faith and credit” of the United States, foreigners dumped the US dollar and US Treasury notes, slowly at first, and then more quickly as fears grew that terrorist groups might strike at the financeers of US attacks abroad, rather than the US perpetrators. Historians will ask, “If the Iraq war were so important, why didn’t George Bush issue war bonds…why did he instead give tax breaks to the wealthy, and run the US Treasury dry, taxing Americans for generations to come?”

But there will be no good answer; it will be further noted that Mr. Bush spent the rest of his life “serving” multiple lucrative appointments--on the boards of major oil companies, who didn’t have to lift a finger to rake in trillions due to the Iraq “mistakes”
(an amount, number crunchers will muse, curiously mirrors the trillions raked OUT of the US Treasury).

Indeed, some future accountant may ponder why the wrenching adjustment to US finances took so long. A gaping US trade deficit, a budget deficit with no end in sight, and a mammoth federal deficit--not to mention, trillions of dollars of (ahem) “guaranteed” but “off balance sheet” US mortgage debt liability-did in fact finally open jaws wide enough to chomp into the perception of the published “triple A” credit rating of the US. Sadly, future financial poets might reflect, what was once the “land of the free” became the “land of the free money” which rapidly transformed the “home of the brave” to the “home of the broke.”

[hangloose]

5. Causes one to pause and ask why should I contribute my taxes to

this whole sale thievery. I have a responsibility to manage my finances so I won't be come a burden on the greater public. It's real simple economics don't spend what you don't have, but if you must be responsible. With so many smart people in charge why do we have so few intelligent decisions being made.

One partial solution is term limits, don't allow any elected official the option to serve more than two terms or 8 years which ever comes first. Let's see some turn over, new blood, get the old boys out, flush the toilet