Bloggers 1, Smoke-Filled Room 0 447
MarkusQ writes "A few days ago a bi-partisan bill (PDF) to create a searchable on-line database of government contracts, grants, insurance, loans, financial assistance, earmarks and other such pork was put on 'secret hold' using a procedure that does not appear to be mentioned in the Constitution or in the Senate bylaws. This raised the ire of bloggers left and right and started an all out bi-partisan effort to expose the culprit by process of elimination. As it turns out it was our old friend the right honorable Senator from Alaska, Mr. 'Series of Tubes', Ted 'Bridge to Nowhere' Stevens."
Re:Wha??? (Score:4, Informative)
Its a quid pro quo type of "good old boy" agreement among those in the majority party.
Re:Wha??? (Score:5, Informative)
To answer your question, it doesn't happen constantly because if it did the hold system wouldn't be an effective means of negotiations. The senate would constantly be in filibuster (if the people issuing holds follow through on their threats) and voting for cloture (to end the debate). It works because in general the senate at least wants to appear to get things done--and perhaps actually wants to get things done--and not waste a bunch of time on filibusters and attempted filibusters.
Re:Well, (Score:4, Informative)
This will be unnecessary as Sen. Stevens is not expected to run for re-election in 2008. He is expected to retire at age 85.
Re:Pork and gerrymandering (Score:3, Informative)
The problem isn't one of Gerrymandering; after all, Stevens is a Senator and Senate seats can't be Gerrymandered because they cover the entire state. Besides, Gerrymandered districts should be less pork prone, since the representative in a safe district has less need to bribe voters with lavish projects than one in a competitive district.
The real problem is that voters can easily see the benefits of porkbarrel projects ("See! We got the highway/bridge/museum/defense contract/etc. that our district wants. Isn't that great!") while the cost of the pork for other districts is hidden in the general mass of government spending. The result is that legislators who bring home the pork to a better job of getting votes than ones who are good at cutting the fat.
Re:Wha??? (Score:2, Informative)
Yea for Blongers??? (Score:5, Informative)
That's according to an Aug. 18 article in the Fort Smith (Ark.) Times Record:
One of the senators most criticized for his personal projects, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has a hold of his own on Coburn's bill to make public the spending patterns of the government. Called the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, the legislation calls for the creation of a database open to the public where citizens can track government spending.
"He's the only senator blocking it," Coburn said of Stevens.
Coburn's office was not available for comment this evening.
The article has gone largely unnoticed in recent days, as hundreds of bloggers and blog-readers (at TPMm and elsewhere) have called Senate offices in an effort to determine who placed the "secret" hold on Coburn's bill. The piece does not turn up in a Nexis search, although it is in Google.
Stevens has been the odds-on favorite since the hunt for the Holder Who Dare Not Speak His Name began.
But did he really do it? Well, he had a motive: As the paper and others have noted, Stevens and Coburn have clashed before -- in particular over Stevens' now-legendary "bridge to nowhere." Coburn attempted (and failed) to block the $233 million boondoggle. And revenge certainly fits the senior Alaskan's m.o. "Stevens can play rough," the Seattle Times noted in June. "Despite denials from his staff, he retaliates - and doesn't mind waiting years to do so."
Stevens' office has so far refused to comment on the hold. Ninety-five other senators have confirmed they were not responsible.
Re:No Shit, Sherlock? (Score:4, Informative)
The reason for these holds is that Senate rules require unanimous consent to put something to a vote. It's basically a way of saying "Some of us haven't made up our minds yet." Without such a rule, you'd could easily have Senators forcing votes on issues that the potential opposition hasn't had time to consider. Expect to hear something like this from Sen. Stevens.
Clearly, it is being abused in this case, but I just wanted to make it clear that these rules exist for basically good reasons.
Call and politely complain (Score:4, Informative)
The Honorable Ted Stevens
United States Senate
522 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-3004
(202) 224-2354 FAX
Re:One man's Pork is another man's Job Well Done (Score:5, Informative)
That might be true if Alaska had a federal tax deficit, but they don't. According to The Tax Foundation [taxfoundation.org], Alaska paid a total of about $4.1 billion in federal taxes in 2004 but received about $8.4 billion in federal spending. The only state to get a higher return on its tax dollars was New Mexico ($9.2 billion out and $19.9 back). A lot of that, of course, is precisely because Alaska's Congresscritters are so good at bringing home the pork.
Re:Ackthpt's Theorem (Score:3, Informative)
The problem comes in when the pork doesn't go to the consituents- but instead to a K-Street contractor- which is why we need this database, to see who gets the contract. The Pork itself isn't that bad. It's who gets the contract that can turn it bad.
Re:The other white meat. (Score:5, Informative)
Been tried before. It was called the Articles of Confederation. It turned out that (suprise suprise) no one would give any money to the federal government and that provided for an crippled central government. No money means no central military, which means no defense (state militias cannot compare to a central military, there just is not enough cohesion), which means, eventually, no country....
The whole issue of states rights has been debated throughout American history as well. In fact, we had a little tussle over it in the middle of the 19th century.
Re:Ackthpt's Theorem (Score:5, Informative)
On some level that's true, but is it an informed opinion? Are you aware that basically Alaska doesn't have any taxes [bankrate.com]?
In fact, Alaska gives away money to residents [state.ak.us] due to its huge oil surplus.
But they still want everybody else's money for their pork.
Re:Ackthpt's Theorem (Score:5, Informative)
While this concept is, as moderated "interesting" in some respect, it has been controlled for in famous and fundamental experiments which to the contrary, strongly support that it is in fact power which corrupts. The Stanford Prison Experiment is certainly the most famous and instructive. For recent interpretations of this and related work, try consulting Zimbardo [prisonexp.org].
I've spent a lot of time around politicans, their staff, and their active supporters, at the national level in the U.S. Most people get into politics at this level with altruistic intentions. I am political and partisan personally, but however entirely I disagree with the other side's interpretation of the world, I respect that people on the other side are involved because they truly believe they are in the right. No, I'm serious. New Members of Congress especially come in with full heads of do-gooder steam.
It doesn't take long for most of them to compromise so much that, from the outside looking in, it would appear they have been corrupted. Some never slide all the way into vote trading, nepotistic business-as-usual, but they are in the minority and either end up as failures or highly respected successes. IOW the mainstream, beaten path in a position of power is a corrupt one.
Most people entering any path will walk right up the middle of it, even if they are natural leaders. Newton's first law: it's not only mechanics ... and power: it corrupts; when absolute, absolutely. BG
Re:Ackthpt's Theorem (Score:1, Informative)
Truer words were never spoken...not in the last few minutes, anyway
I never seem to have mod points when I want them most, because I'd love to show your comment some "Insightful" lovin'.
Re:No Shit, Sherlock? (Score:4, Informative)
NCTA = Phone Cos. = Stevens' Backrub service (Score:3, Informative)
The NCTA does not want Net Neutrality, not because they want to abondon their customers, it is because they don't want to maintain or upgrade their equipment. They are in the business of cutting costs at the consumer level while the men in the smoke filled rooms make a profit. The Cable Industry had me on their side when they were opposed to the phone companies monopolizing competition. Now they have become the phone companies. They are now sending messages to their customers telling them that customers will lose service if they do not oppose net neutrality. What are they going to do next? Tell us to vote Republican or we loose HBO?
AT&T is already cutting back services on DSL customers while their security is compromized. Yet, immediately following the news story about how 19,000 IDs were compromized on the AM radio, there is a commerical for AT&T promoting an offer!
The NCTA, the major Telecoms, and Mr. Stevens do not know the the consequences of their actions. They don't listen to Boole, Babbage, or Tesla, they listen to Washing, Lincoln, Hamlton, Jackson, Grant, and Franklin.
It is this ideology that only capitalism should be the deciding factor of any technological or scientific decision that will create significant anarchy if Net Neutrality is disregaurded.
After all these year, the facade that "Cable Cares" or "Cable is a community leader that does good things" has just eroded!
Contact the National Cable & Telecommunications Association at (202) 775-3550 and tell them that threatening us with bad service is no way to run an industry.
Then give Senator Ted Stevens a call (202) 224-3004
Re:Seeber's Theorem (Score:5, Informative)
In case you're not aware, frictional unemployment refers to unemployment that is the result of "shopping around." When you look for a job, you typically have several leads but unless you're absolutely desperate for income, you're unlikely to take the first job offered to you -- you'll look around, see what else is available, see if there's anything better. On the other side of the fence, employers do the same thing: they don't take the first job applicant that responds, but instead shop around for a while to see who the best applicant is. How long this process lasts depends on how badly the worker needs a job and how badly the employer needs an employee. Frictional unemployment is not the only kind of unemployment. Obviously, you can have unemployment as a result of structural changes in the economy (buggy whip manufacturers, for example, had a needless skillset after the rise of the automobile, and were thus structurally unemployed) and unemployment due to overall poor economic conditions, but it is important to recognize that even if everything is completely hunky-dory in the economy and there is a job for everyone, there will still be a certain amount of frictional unemployment.
The result is that 100% employment is not an achievable goal, so instead economists talk about full employment as meaning the full natural rate of employment, not including people who are frictionally unemployed. I believe full employment in the US is estimated to be around 95% of the labour force.
Of course, 95% of the population is not employed, but it's important again to realise that a large percentage of the population is not considered part of the labour force by economists. People in the labour force include people working and people looking for work -- something like only 60% of the US is employed at any given time, but that's because there are lots of children, old people, students, bums, and other folks that for whatever reason are not actively seeking employment. They are not considered "unemployed" by economists because they are not participating in the labour market.
Further, consider that the Fed is helpless to do anything at all about structural unemployment, which results when the structure of the economy changes and results in people being unemployed because their skillset is no longer required by the labour market (the aforementioned buggy whip manufacturers lost their jobs for this reason.) Structural unemployment is a reality in a dynamic economy -- those VAX/VMS experts are out of a job these days, unless they learned some other, more marketable skill in the meantime. The Fed is helpless to stop this, so when they talk about bringing about full employment, you have to be fair and recognize that there are some kinds of employment they can't do anything about, nor should they be expected to.
What they can help with is cyclical unemployment, at least theoretically. Cyclical unemployment is a result of the natural recession-boom-peak-bust cycle: during a recession, people lose their jobs. The fed can temper how eratic the business cycle is with countercyclic monetary policy. When we enter a recession, the fed generally buys US treasury securities on the open market, and when we enter a boom, they sell them. This stimulates the economy during a recession and tempers it during a boom (because when the fed "buys" something, it creates money out of thin a
Prohibition of a federal army (Score:4, Informative)
The US Constitution has a prohibition on funding an army for more than two years. ("Congress may tax...To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;" Article 1, Section 8.)
The Founders had no intention of there being a permanent central military, and indeed, there really wasn't one until the latter part of the 19th century (how they get around what is clearly a pretty clear prohibition is a bit mysterious to me.) Our system of national defense was always supposed to be through the independent state militians (however, that same section does allow for Congress to set up the rules for "organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States" which implies a way of standardizing them for the time when they need to be combined into a federal army.)
A navy, on the other hand, was permitted to be permanent.
Re:OT (Score:3, Informative)
Thanks for asking, I learned something today.
Re:Why trust Congress to do it? (Score:3, Informative)
Direct Links To Thomas Documents [loc.gov] :-)
Not just Stevens... (Score:2, Informative)
He has since removed his hold, so now the only obstacle is Stevens.