Freshmen: running up and down the halls, shouting..

I remember when I went to college and lived in a dorm, which was an all-girls dorm. It was all freshmen too. Life lesson: freshmen away from home for the first time will run up and down the halls, shouting. New found freedom! Drugs, sex, and rock and roll at any hour! (ok it was the 70s)

In later years, no one wanted to house with freshmen, cause they are, well, like that. They just want sheer freedom, and are so enthusiastic. Lacking perspective perhaps. Lacking any discipline to silence their strident voices, though they didn't have a clue what they were talking about.

OK, we all grow up and out of that phase. So what do we have in today's House of Representatives? A whole lot of freshmen (85 of them!) newly elected in November. Ah! Anxious to prove their freedom! The mandates that they alone are responsible for meeting the country's needs! Every single one of them the David that takes on Goliath!

Slingshots at the ready, each of them took their turn stabbing the beast that is the federal government. I have to say one thing, the extreme discipline in the House as they took on some 500 amendments to the continuing resolution to fund the balance of the FY 2011 federal budget. Many votes, even last night - limited to 2 minutes.

All time for debate had passed. The fact that they whipped through that number of amendments shows they truly have a mind for production. Quantity. Quality may be another story (get ready for field failures for some of these errant widgets)..

Here are some that passed, and are in the FY 2011 federal budget that the House will pass on up to the Senate (the upperclassmen):
* Gut the new financial regulations passed (the Dodd-Frank bill that provides stronger regulation over the financial industry - remember how we got into this Recession - all those fancy financial instruments like collateralized debt obligations, and mortgatized securities?)
* Nuke funding for Planned Parenthood
* Nuke funds to implement Obamacare, the Health Care Reform Act that passed last year
* Nuke funds for the EPA to regulate Greenhouse Gasses. I thought it was very administratively clever of Obama and his administration to use the EPA to regulate an obvious global polluter, greenhouse gasses. Hey, if the Congress can't pass strong environmental legislation..
* Nuke funding for net neutrality - sponsored by Oregon's own token Republican, Greg Walden
* Nuke funding for National Public Radio
* Nuke funding for Americorps volunteers

ok they have had their fun, instead of sex/drugs/rock & roll, they have gotten to play in The House, and slash and take stabs at the federal budget they so despise.

On Feb 28, the Senate will have their turn. Oh, look at the gift the freshmen have delivered us. Time to start over, they will sigh. The Minority Leader in the House offers a graceful out as an alternative - how about passing a continuing resolution to fund at FY 2010 levels for the rest of the fiscal year? Thank you, Ms. Pelosi, for being the grown up in the crowd.

The Senate will smile and nod and pass their own budget. Obama will not even have a chance to see what the House hath wrought (if he does, it will get vetoed). And we will have more of the same for the rest of the year.

Will this tie anyone in knots? No I don't think so. Will it result in fundamental budget reform for the federal government? Nope, not either. Maybe just maybe the House freshmen will see the results of all their running up and down the halls shouting, and, while it was fun, and they were watched on cspan for a while, nothing actually came of it. Maybe just maybe they will grow up, although I doubt they are ready to be considered sophomores just yet.

Random Numbers

Another week, another week wasted in Congress..
This week on cspan we have the "debate" on the FY 2011 budget.

The red forces, eager to show their strength, toss out random numbers for accelerated budget cuts. The base budget they are working from already hacks $60 Billion from the federal budget, but each new Republican showing up for work needs to have his name on a House floor transcript, and on an amendment.

So not enough to cut out funding for BLM maintenance for wild horses. No - Republican XYZ wants to cut another $10 million out. Each amendment a random number tacked on to show they can help chisel down the federal budget deficit.

Meanwhile, the blue forces, eager to show their worth to their constituents, including their constituent programs, argue forcefully. I've heard of the low-income energy assistance program, I've heard of cancer research, I've heard of job training programs. The fact that they have to defend these programs in the face of random number attacks seems just another theatre show.

This weekend, going to the symphony. Each musician an expert with his or her instrument. They make it come alive. In harmony with every other musician, every other instrument. No one is an island. No one has to fight back. They practice and practice and become one.

An inspiration for Congress?

Use the Source, Luke!

In Star Wars it is really easy to identify the good forces in the universe (Luke, Hans Solo, the collective "Force", Obi-wan Kenobi) from the evil forces (Darth Vader, the Death Star). In real life it may look obvious sometimes, but check this out.

Today you can watch both the FY 2011 and FY 2012 budgets unfolding. A cspan junkie's dream. It almost looks like they are for different countries.

FY 2011. Since our current beloved federal government is funded through March 3, after that - poof! All federal operations shut down, for without the petroleum that is money (called appropriations) that funds federal operations, nothing will happen. Your favorite tax collector (maybe your cousin, in fact) will go home. No food inspectors, so time to grow your own veggies. No highway administration, so get used to potholes (a boon time for auto mechanics!)

Today we have House Resolution 1, the first bill of the New 112th Congress. Which would fund the federal govt for the rest of this fiscal year - through Sept 30, 2011. What have we got in there: cuts to many things.

Zeroes out (stop right on passage of the bill) various worker retraining funds, such as prisoner re-entry, or youth programs, or all that unspent stimulus money. That is not obligated. So quick obligate those funds now or they also disappear. Cuts to cancer research, to community oriented policing. No aid to states, so let them go broke. Cuts to drinking water upgrade programs (so, get used to bottled water). Oh, and absolutely under no way shape or form, will there be another cent spent on Stimulus signage (you know those highway signs advertising - this program funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act?)

Then there is the President's FY 2012 budget, for the fiscal year that begins on October 1. People wax eloquently about something they've never seen - the President's budget is released in February, then the various Congressional committees chop it up and debate intelligently 12 separate appropriations bills. Then they pass them over to the Senate who step up the intelligent deliberations in their wisdom. They all get passed well in advance of October 1, so when the new fiscal year starts, all stakeholders (any state, any state agency, many groups which receive federal funding - like your local food stamp caseworker, your unemployment check, your fish inspector, to name a few) have certainty about their funding. Ah how nice to have this textbook vision, one that some people who are less than 25 have never seen in their lives!

In this budget what have we got. $53 billion for high speed rail! Is it cost effective? Well it sure sounds cool and if it took me 2 hours I could get to LA in a very quick hurry. A reprieve for all those states who kept their unemployment tax rates very low, and now in this continued Great Recession, have had to borrow from the Department of Labor (who had to borrow from the Treasury, who had to borrow from China. I think thats as far as the chain goes..) No interest payments on these loans for 2 more years! And then after that, raising the amount that the employers in their state would pay unemployment tax on. But! To keep from passing any kind of tax increase on any single employer, correspondingly reduce the tax rate. Voila! No tax increase! Does this make any state's unemployment fund more stable? Or just kick the can down the road..

So which is the Good Force, and which is the Evil Force? Is it right and proper and American to make large cuts to federal programs that people have come to depend on, which help the lives of many disenfranchised by our capitalist society, for the sake of a sustainable federal budget? Or is it right and proper to invest in the future and support employers along the way, even if it is not sustainable cause they all need stimulus and investment now to help our economy grow? Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi, you're my only hope!