Congress: April 2009 Archives

Congress is working on reforms to be applied to the credit card industry. Good. They need it. But, when it became clear that the government was going to bail out floundering corporations, did credit card companies begin to make themselves insolvent in order to get in line for tax payer dollars? With a few exceptions, the credit card companies did not begin to shut down consumer credit until government handouts were known to be coming and the recession underway.

Deficit spending by the federal government, (spending beyond the budget year's revenues), has at various times in our history been essential and necessary. Necessity has been defined as insuring the integrity of the nation, as in World War 2, or, insuring humane conditions for the American people, as in the Great Depression or Dust Bowl era. Defining essential and necessary deficit spending is not difficult. Defining non-essential and unnecessary spending is a highly improbable endeavor for our American system of government. Therein lies the economic threat going forward. A potential solution sits idly in Congress.

On Jan. 8, U.S. Representative Steve Israel (D-NY) and U.S. Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wi) introduced the Weekend Voting Act in the Senate and House in an effort to increase voter turnout. This is only 60 years late in coming. Sensing however, that there is a new Sheriff in town who reiterates that he will sign bills that make sense for America, not just bills that make sense for his party, some of the more responsible Representatives in our Congress are going to seize the opportunity to make political reforms never introduced before, but, long overdo, like this one.