"Too many pet projects are attached to this," says Jose Oliva, 64, who retired last week after 25 years as a Customs and Border Protection officer in El Paso. "Let's put it back on the table, get the carving knife, and let's start cutting away."
This statement so well describes one of the problems that plague our congressional system: earmarking. Earmarking is the act of tacking on things to bills that have little to nothing to do with the bill. An example would be pay increase for state-paid janitors tacked onto a bill about highway funding. They have nothing in common! Yet, this is how our system runs.
In the case of the janitors and highway bill, it might not matter because the bill will be passed regardless, but with big bills like the health care one, earmarks can be deadly to the progress of the bill. Senators and representatives pull crap like promising to vote for the bill to pass only if they get something they want tagged onto the bottom. That's BS and should not be the case. Those earmarks also delay the process by letting the earmarks be debated and discussed to see if they're acceptable to be added and how they should be modified, rather than the members of congress discussing parts of the bill that are pertinent to its original function.
This bill will never be passed unless earmarks are abolished from the process.
There should be a rule that goes something like this: "No stipulations on any bill will be made unless pertaining to the original intent and purpose of the bill."
All other things that might be tacked on must wait, and be added to a bill drafted to be passed expressly when the major bill has been finished. A system could easily be set up which dictates that regular bill debate and discussion takes up the morning session and the short-term bills can be discussed in the afternoon session.
This isn't complicated. Doesn't it make sense to make our congressional process more efficient by enacting such rules?
Excellent point, Garrett. The other obscure political problem that always gets overlooked, but which, I think anyway, has caused terrible consequences is gerrymandering (where political district boundaries are redrawn). Instead of being redrawn to adapt to changing population changes, which at least makes some sense, they are constantly redrawn to make certain areas even more "safe" - that is, Republican or Democrat. The result is that the other party really can't win in that district, which just allows the representatives to drift further and further to the extreme - which makes any kind of compromise (the true genius of the American political system) increasingly impossible.
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