I would credit by name the person and/or the radio show I heard the germ of this on if I could remember either one, but I don't. Let me be clear: I've fleshed it out below, but the germ of this idea is not mine. I wish it were (!), but it's not.
It's merely brilliant, (essentially) free, and will save big, huge, buckets of wasted dollars.
Have all members of the House and the Senate come to Washington only once every quarter, or even only two or three times a year, including the State of the Union, which the Constitution requires they be present for, and that's it. With all the technology available to us it would be easy for them to do their jobs, teleconference and vote from home state offices, where they really belong. The bonus to all of this, the real, overriding reason to do it more than any other, is that it would shut down K Street.
K Street is where most lobbyists set up shop. Most of the corruption we all abhor starts there and goes right to the Russell Office Building and Capitol Hill.
All members would be issued government Blackberries, computers, and teleconferencing equipment. Absolutely every syllable would be public record. Every phone call. Every email. Every teleconference.
Now that's not to say that they couldn't call their cash carrying pals on their wife's phone and cut a crooked deal "off the grid" but that would be fairly easy to trace forensically if we discover a piece of legislation in which the public record is clean, but the coffers are fat.
I've been thinking about this off and on for months since I first heard it and I can't come up with a single reason why it's not only feasible, but preferable. It would keep these folks close to their constituents.
Further, I would require that they log "x" amount of hours annually to either office hours or "town hall" type availability. If there is a fixed, finite amount of time that they are required to be accessible to their constituents, they wouldn't be able to hide from them like they do when they hide out in Washington. It doesn't have to be draconian. Just, I dunno, a number that works out to maybe 5 hours per week. That's not much. I mean, after all, with 2,700 page bills to read, we can't devote all their time to constituent service!
Look, I was born at night, but not last night, so I know the chances of getting this passed are zero, but wouldn't it be fun to find just one Senator.... like Scott Brown... to propose it and shame them into doing it?
I know. I know. They're immune to shame. I know....
But I also know there are brilliant ideas out there to expand and improve on this, and nothing ever gets done unless someone tries. Email me! annie@mcjusa.com
27 February 2010
This is Getting Boring...It's so easy to reveal the flaws in their arguments!
1. Times of London has no standing in this issue, and besides, who the hell cares what they find boring?
2. The networks are a business. Businesses make money. I know the concept of capitalsim is abhorrent to you (unless you are the beneficiary of it), but they're not there because it feels good. They're there to make money. It was not money making television. You yourself, in the same damned paragraph just cited the Times of London's assertion that is was boring as gospel... so... Duh.
3. The purpose of this meeting was to have a bipartisan summit on this democrat crafted bill. That would entail, it seems, letting the Republicans have their say. Of all the available minutes, Republicans got ONE out of THREE. You can denigrate the facts all you want Joe, and regard the observation of them as stupid. But it doesn't CHANGE them. Why do libs insist on denigrating the observation of facts as "stupid"? It's an observation of fact....hellloooooo? Let me help you here, Joe. I'll give you an example of a truly stupid observation that could be made about the health care summit so you can see the difference between stupid and not stupid, okay? STUPID observation of fact: With few exceptions, everybody there, except the President, appeared to be "not black." THAT'S a stupid observation of fact. Ooops. Sorry. The fact that the President is black and so much of the House and Senate and.... America, in fact, is "not black" has been observed repeatedly on MSNBC, CNN, etc. and deemed to be proof that any time anyone disagrees with Obama it's racism. Got it straight now? Of course... they elected him, but we won't let that little detail get in the way of a good racist argument, huh??????
3. The purpose of this meeting was to have a bipartisan summit on this democrat crafted bill. That would entail, it seems, letting the Republicans have their say. Of all the available minutes, Republicans got ONE out of THREE. You can denigrate the facts all you want Joe, and regard the observation of them as stupid. But it doesn't CHANGE them. Why do libs insist on denigrating the observation of facts as "stupid"? It's an observation of fact....hellloooooo? Let me help you here, Joe. I'll give you an example of a truly stupid observation that could be made about the health care summit so you can see the difference between stupid and not stupid, okay? STUPID observation of fact: With few exceptions, everybody there, except the President, appeared to be "not black." THAT'S a stupid observation of fact. Ooops. Sorry. The fact that the President is black and so much of the House and Senate and.... America, in fact, is "not black" has been observed repeatedly on MSNBC, CNN, etc. and deemed to be proof that any time anyone disagrees with Obama it's racism. Got it straight now? Of course... they elected him, but we won't let that little detail get in the way of a good racist argument, huh??????
Reading between the lines, you can conclude that the Republicans had nothing very interesting, or clever, to say (and were never able to get the President's goat). And that the President was his usual, unflappable, well-informed self. You can also conclude that not much progress was made at the summit, as Karen reports here--but that's a huge surprise, right?
1. We're "reading between lines" now? Hey, Joe, ever heard of a VCR/DVR/INTERNET? You could WATCH the whole thing once you got home THEN draw conclusions.
1.a. So "we can conclude" based on NYT reportage? Isn't this a little like "I don't know the whole story but the police acted stupidly" Joe? SIT YOUR BUTT DOWN AND WATCH THE DAMN THING. WORK. EARN YOUR KEEP. There are plenty of out of work reporters out there who would be HAPPY to do the work YOU ARE NOT DOING.
Reading further, in the New York Times, I can't find any indications that the Congressional Democrats were actually present at this meeting. Certainly, they had nothing notable to say, no new compromises to propose--which leads to another obvious conclusion: the Republicans have been absolutely recalcitrant in this process, but the Dems are no bargain, either.
1. You're so even handed, Joe. That was really fair of you there, big fella! The NYT is so even handed in their reporting I'm sure any conclusions you draw from them are accurate. I mean, after all, they were way out in front on Van Jones....er... ACORN... oops. Sorry. Shouldn't have mentioned that. My bad! ;(
I remain convinced that if the Republicans actually wanted to deal with this issue, they might have gotten some major concessions from the President--malpractice reform, for sure; perhaps a greater use of insurance polices that emphasize catastrophic coverage (as the Republicans wanted), maybe even a system--as John McCain proposed during the campaign and health wonks everywhere favor--that truly limited the deductability of corporate health care benefits. To get these things, however, the Republicans would have had to say yes at some point. As in, YES, I'll vote for the bill if you throw in malpractice and pay for it with the money you get from limiting deductability. That is what happens in a negotiation. That is what is supposed to happen in a democracy.
1. You "remain convinced that if the Republicans actually wanted to deal with this issue, they might have gotten some major concessions from the President" Got your people mixed up there, big fella. The sentence should have read "... convinced that if the PRESIDENT actually wanted to deal, he might have made concessions..." IT'S A DEMOCRAT BILL. What do the REPUBLICANS HAVE TO CONCEDE? One can't concede something ONE DOESN'T HAVE. That sentence ALONE reveals you to be the theoretician that you are. You have never actually had to hammer out an agreement in your entire life, have you? Always had an agent or a lawyer or representative of some kind. Maybe once, early in your career, over something small, you might have had to negotiate, but not lately, that's for sure. And like you, I can make assumptions about who got the better of your early negotiations, my friend. Two can play at the "reading between the lines" game. You LOST.
2. "That is what is supposed to happen in a democracy." This is not the first time you have made this glaring error. We live in a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC. NOT a democracy. Get it straight, will you!
But the obvious truth here is that the Republicans do not want any sort of health care bill to pass at all because they do not want to hand President Obama a victory. Shame on them.
1. Those meanies. Those big, bad, mean Republicans. They "obviously" want people to drop dead in the streets and die, die, die. They're the party of "no." Okay Joe, let's take this slowly... The framers intended that this kind of legislation be hard...That's why they built in this concept of... say it with me, now....the supermajority. That means, and we're going to take the math part really, really slow, you need 60 senators out of the 100 to pass legislation. Too bad you never had 60 dem... Oh, wait... Until a few weeks ago, in fact, for the entire first year of Obama's administation, you DID have a 60 vote supermajority in the Senate with 60 democrats so you could have....passed...anything....you....wanted... so help me out here, Joe, cuz I'm just a big-dum-dummy... If you had a 60 vote supermajority, therefore rendering the Republicans LITERALLY HELPLESS TO STOP ANYTHING, how exactly are they the party of "NO"?
Joe, listening to you and your lefty friends whine about how the Republicans have "stopped" healthcare would be like listening to the 2004 Yankees complain that those mean mean Red Sox should have LOST game 7 of their series because "We want to win it! We want it and they won't give it to us. Waaa haaa haaa...We keep throwing pitches and they keep hitting them.... Waaahaaahaaaa.... Why don't they strike out? Why don't they drop the ball so we can win....? Waaaahaaaahaaaaa.....We're the YANKEES....."
Gotta get YOUR OWN TEAM to win it, Joe. It's called THE BATTLEFIELD OF IDEAS. WIN ON THE POINTS and quit yer whinin'.
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