Do We Need A New"Contract With America"?

[Guest]

It appears that the Democrats will win enough of a majority to control the agenda in the House and to enforce cloture in the Senate and even over-ride a Presidential veto. The deep problems facing the U.S. on so many fronts suggest that maybe the Democratic leadership should begin to create a "contract with America" similar to what was done in the 1990's by the Republicans.

Back in 1994, when Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House, along with Dick Armey, Tom deLay, John Boehner, et al, the House leadership published the Contract With America. The "contract" detailed the actions the Republicans promised to take after they became the majority party in the United States House of Representatives during the 104th Congress. The Contract with America was introduced six weeks before the 1994 Congressional election and was signed by all but two of the Republican members of the House and all of the Party's non-incumbent Republican Congressional candidates.

Proponents say the Contract was revolutionary in its commitment to offering specific legislation for a vote, describing in detail the precise plan of the Congressional Representatives. Its provisions represented the view of many conservative Republicans on the issues of shrinking the size of government, promoting lower taxes and greater entrepreneurial activity, and both tort reform and welfare reform. The Contract's actual text was a list of actions the Republicans promised to take if they were in the majority following the election. During the construction of the Contract, Gingrich insisted on "60% issues", intending for the Contract to avoid promises on controversial and divisive matters like abortion and school prayer.

The Republicans did gain control of the House for the 104th Congress and along with the Senate which was also controlled by the GOP formed the first Congress in almost 50 years that was controlled by the same political party. The Republican-controlled House did vote on virtually all the bills outlined in the Contract during the first 100 days of the Congress. Some of the bills passed both the House and the Senate and were signed by President Clinton. But many of the bills originated and passed by the GOP House died in the Senate.

So, coming back to 2008 and the upcoming 111th Congress, it would sure appear to me that the Congressional Democratic leadership should begin planning the legislative agenda that would quickly address many of the problems currently facing the nation. They would have the political power to pass just about anything the wanted and if Barack Obama is elected, it could quickly become law. Does that sound like a reasonable expectation? Who thinks that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid could pull it off?

Hmmm, maybe that suggests the need for some change at the top of the Democratic Congressional leadership, don't you think? I don't think we have time for the leaderless ship that we call the United States Congress to continue for the 111th and 112th Congresses.

[Guest]

I don't see how they will accomplish anything good. They have been in control for the last three years. Do you think it's a coincidence that the economy is tanking over Fannie and Freddie? I don't. I'd be interested to know how the people who got the country into this mess are the ones to architect us out of it. Not a chance.

Buckle your seat belts and your wallets. You may never see either one of them for 4 more years.

[Guest]

It appears that the Democrats will win enough of a majority to control the agenda in the House and to enforce cloture in the Senate and even over-ride a Presidential veto. The deep problems facing the U.S. on so many fronts suggest that maybe the Democratic leadership should begin to create a "contract with America" similar to what was done in the 1990's by the Republicans.

Back in 1994, when Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House, along with Dick Armey, Tom deLay, John Boehner, et al, the House leadership published the Contract With America. The "contract" detailed the actions the Republicans promised to take after they became the majority party in the United States House of Representatives during the 104th Congress. The Contract with America was introduced six weeks before the 1994 Congressional election and was signed by all but two of the Republican members of the House and all of the Party's non-incumbent Republican Congressional candidates.

Proponents say the Contract was revolutionary in its commitment to offering specific legislation for a vote, describing in detail the precise plan of the Congressional Representatives. Its provisions represented the view of many conservative Republicans on the issues of shrinking the size of government, promoting lower taxes and greater entrepreneurial activity, and both tort reform and welfare reform. The Contract's actual text was a list of actions the Republicans promised to take if they were in the majority following the election. During the construction of the Contract, Gingrich insisted on "60% issues", intending for the Contract to avoid promises on controversial and divisive matters like abortion and school prayer.

The Republicans did gain control of the House for the 104th Congress and along with the Senate which was also controlled by the GOP formed the first Congress in almost 50 years that was controlled by the same political party. The Republican-controlled House did vote on virtually all the bills outlined in the Contract during the first 100 days of the Congress. Some of the bills passed both the House and the Senate and were signed by President Clinton. But many of the bills originated and passed by the GOP House died in the Senate.

So, coming back to 2008 and the upcoming 111th Congress, it would sure appear to me that the Congressional Democratic leadership should begin planning the legislative agenda that would quickly address many of the problems currently facing the nation. They would have the political power to pass just about anything the wanted and if Barack Obama is elected, it could quickly become law. Does that sound like a reasonable expectation? Who thinks that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid could pull it off?

Hmmm, maybe that suggests the need for some change at the top of the Democratic Congressional leadership, don't you think? I don't think we have time for the leaderless ship that we call the United States Congress to continue for the 111th and 112th Congresses.


This congress has shown by their actions and words that they ONLY DO what is politically expeidant (that includes Republicans).

If Sen Obama is elected President..your leadership is Obama, Biden, Pelosi and Reid. Can you honestly tell me you have a nice warm comfy feeling about that ?

[Guest]

newt blew it ,,,,, this should have been his year...

[Guest]

No, RetiredGuy, this whole mess can't be blamed on the Democrats who have controlled Congress for the last two years.It took a lot longer than that.

The original CRA was enacted under a Democratic President with a Democratic House and Republican Senate. Since that time we have had 20 years of Republican Presidents and 8 years with a Democrat in the White House. Republican George Bush presided for the last eight years. The Republicans have controlled the House for 12 of the last 16 years and the Senate for 10 of the last 16 years.

Could this have been foreseen? Why wasn't anything done? This situation WAS predicted...by Congressional committees, by the financial media, by individual elected politicians, and most importantly by the various regulators who inspected the banks, insurance comapnies and Freddie and Fannie, much in open testimony before Congress!

Why was nothing done? Because those that could change things most easily--the U.S. Congress--were caught in the crosshairs of huge amounts of contributions from the companies who would suffer from a tightening of regulations and their habit of pandering for votes for re-election. We've all seen the disgusting statistics showing that the six members of Congress who initially lead the response to the current crisis had accepted a total of $24 million from the very companies they were supposed to regulate. That's a good example of the influence of special interests. Even our own congresswoman for Florida's 5th District has accepted almost $600,000, the majority from banks, insurance companies and real estate companies. For what? She was the owner of a donut shop before her election to the House. Why are companies throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars at her, because she's such a nice lady? Yeah, right!

We've all seen the YouTube videos of members of Congress defending the CRA and Fannie and Freddie. But those shown in the video were all members of the minority party in Congress in 2004. Why didn't the members of the majority party modify the laws or regulations when they clearly could have done so? Because of that pandering for the votes of the low income people who were enjoying the largesse being able to get loans they couldn't possibly repay. I guess the Congress thought that the music would never stop and not havie enough chairs for them to hide behind. No, it should be pinned on members of both parties over many, many years.

Others believe that legislation written primarily by Phil Gramm, a Republican from Texas, in 1999 (signed into law by Clinton), is in large part to blame for the 2008 mortgage crisis. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act is perhaps most famous for repealing the Glass-Steagall Act which had established much of the regulation of the national banks. Among other results, the legislation allowed Swiss Bank UBS to purchase several American institutions and begin competing in both commercial and investment banking. Gramm later became a lobbyist for UBS, collecting over $750,000 in fees. UBS alone issued over $18 billion in subprime mortgages, most of which they either sold to Fannie Mae or packaged in mortgage-backed securities which they sold to investors. Gramm was John McCain’s presidential campaign co-chair and his most senior economic adviser from summer 2007 to July 18, 2008. He withdrew after he made the unfortunate statement that Americans were a bunch of "whiners". He still is currently employed as Vice Chairman of UBS, serving as an investment banking "rainmaker".

No, it wasn't just the Democrats and it didn't all just happen in the last couple of years. There are plenty of members of Congress from both parties that can be accused of blame. They all ought to be thrown out of office as soon as possible.