Quote:
Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna
A recent report by the Congressional Ethics Office--there's a misnomer if I ever heard one--reported that lobbyist's campaign contributions to members of Congress has totaled $1.7 billion over the last ten years. Further, the rate of campaign "giving" has accelerated dramatically in recent years.
With all those zeros, it's sometimes hard to do the arithmetic. I did it for you. That's $3.91 million for each and every walking, talking member of the U.S. Congress! Of course, they all didn't get that much--some got lots more if they were in positions to be "friendly" towards their donors.
This is the "democracy" designed by our founding fathers? I think not. I've almost concluded we need a new system. Would a monarchy work better?
This factoid really P's me off.
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yes of course it does, and so does this...
"A day after beating incumbent Arlen Specter in a Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary contest, Rep. Joe Sestak announced that he would make "enforcement of the pay-as-you-go budget rules" a priority if he wins in November. Good luck to him.
"Pay-as-you-go, or paygo, rules require that new entitlement spending and new tax cuts must be paid for dollar-for-dollar with entitlement spending cuts or tax increases. As Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee has noted, the Democrats under Speaker Nancy Pelosi "have violated pay-as-you-go rules by nearly $1 trillion" over the past three years.
And they're not done. In the coming weeks, say Congressional Republicans, we should expect some $300 billion of expenditures that Democrats will declare "emergency spending" and thus do not have to be offset by other spending cuts. The list includes $60 billion for a military supplemental spending bill; $23 billion for education; and $170 billion for jobless and other welfare benefits. All said, the deficit could climb to $1.7 trillion from the current record high $1.4 trillion. "I really can't think of the last time the Democrats paid for anything they want to spend money on," Mr. Ryan grumbles."
Now I realize that the deficit is all Bush's fault....as is the international monetary crisis but just thought I would at least say this....That doggone Bush !
IF anyone responds it will be interesting how it gets twisted to be his fault !