Flypaper and Legislation

I was reading through what I thought was the "War Supplemental" bill (aka Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2010) just yesterday. It contained many things that you might not expect a war supplemental bill to contain.

Just a few - recissions of Stimulus funds (the Rs got their way, I thought, how interesting). Recissions are reductions - you know those unspent Stimulus funds. Funding for program integrity activities. My favorite was the REA program, where people collecting unemployment are mandatorily invited in for a review to see if they still qualify to receive unemployment, also to see what assistance they need in finding a job or training.

Then there was a unique carve-out for the State of Texas. I wonder if they really feel like part of the union? This was in the section offering $10B worth of funding to local school districts. And pointedly to the Governor of Texas, it stated that he would have to provide assurances that the money would be used to supplement and not supplant funding.

But what does this Texas stuff mean? It became clear when I looked up Governor Perry of Texas, who is a Republican trying to derail various Democrat agenda items. So in federal legislation he is singled out.

Fascinating stuff. Oh and the recissions to EPA and Energy programs as well.

But - psyche! That was the wrong version of the bill. The correct one, which I found today, that actually passed the House and Senate (same version) only contained military and State-department funding.

Now for flypaper and how this relates.. I lived in a house once in Beaverton. For some reason flies would come and fly around the living room. Very annoying. I was told to hang flypaper, which I did. The concept is you have this long extremely sticky paper hanging in the middle of the room. Flies fly around at random (so the concept goes, I did not interrogate them), and the thought is at some point they will smack into the flypaper. From which they are not able to escape.

It seems federal legislation these days has an element of randomness in it. I've heard managers talk about "throw lots of stuff out and see what sticks". Maybe that is where it comes from. Throw all the random stuff you want into legislation and see if it can survive.

Another day, another cspan lesson. Cannon courtesy of Congress Park in Saratoga Springs, New York; and was constructed at Rock Island Arsenal in Rock Island, Illinois.