The obama list

[Dare-Ya]

Part of me is hoping he becomes president so all the snowmobilers will go into hiding, sleeping in there caves with canned goods and stocks of ammunition, while I will get the mountains all to myself. I can dig that.

Where exactly do you think these caves are? Do you really think you'd have the mountains all to yourself, or would they be filled with fully armed snowmobilers waiting for a liberal to ride by?

 

[ruffryder]

Where exactly do you think these caves are? Do you really think you'd have the mountains all to yourself, or would they be filled with fully armed snowmobilers waiting for a liberal to ride by?

The statement was based on the fact that most people here think the world is going to end if Obama is president, hence the caves, or bomb shelters....

Sorry for the confusion

 

[Dare-Ya]

The statement was based on the fact that most people here think the world is going to end if Obama is president, hence the caves, or bomb shelters....

Sorry for the confusion

You're the confused one here. Take a look at the land use threads. Especially the ones about Washington St. Do you notice a pattern here. The people who have pushed for more wilderness, especially in Washington State, are the DEMOCRATS. So we're not afraid the world will come to an end, but we are afraid that our motorized use will come to an end. But unfortunately that is not my only concern.

 

[ruffryder]

You're the confused one here. Take a look at the land use threads. Especially the ones about Washington St. Do you notice a pattern here. The people who have pushed for more wilderness, especially in Washington State, are the DEMOCRATS CONGRESSMEN/REPRESENTATIVES. So we're not afraid the world will come to an end, but we are afraid that our motorized use will come to an end. But unfortunately that is not my only concern.

Fixed it for you.

The congressmen are the ones that have a majority of the control/say of the lands. Otherwise how do you explain how the Wild Sky wilderness got passed? It came from congress and Bush signed it, right? That is the point. You pickin up what I'm puttin down? Doesn't seem so....

 

[Dare-Ya]

Fixed it for you.

The congressmen are the ones that have a majority of the control/say of the lands. Otherwise how do you explain how the Wild Sky wilderness got passed? It came from congress and Bush signed it, right? That is the point. You pickin up what I'm puttin down? Doesn't seem so....

Duuhh!!! Here's a sample of what I'm talking about from land use.

Senate Bill 5318 (Participating in the management of Washington's portion of the Yukon to Yellowstone Rocky mountain ecosystem.) Passed in the Senate (30 to 19) on February 13, 2008.

The following legislators voted for Senate Bill 5318:

Brown (D)
Eide (D)
Fairley (D)
Franklin (D)
Fraser (D)
Hargrove (D)
Hatfield (D)
Haugen (D)
Hobbs (D)
Jacobsen (D)
Kastama (D)
Kauffman (D)
Keiser (D)
Kilmer (D)
Kline (D)
Kohl-Welles (D)
Marr (D)
McAuliffe (D)
McDermott (D)
Murray (D)
Oemig (D)
Prentice (D)
Pridemore (D)
Rasmussen (D)
Regala (D)
Rockefeller (D)
Shin (D)
Spanel (D)
Tom (D)
Weinstein (D)

The following legislators voted against Senate Bill 5318. Make sure you call, fax, e-mail or visit them and thank them for their opposition to the bill.

Benton (R)
Berkey (D)
Brandland (R)
Carrell (R)
Delvin (R)
Hewitt (R)
Holmquist (R)
Honeyford (R)
King (R)
McCaslin (R)
Morton (R)
Parlette (R)
Pflug (R)
Roach (R)
Schoesler (R)
Sheldon (D)
Stevens (R)
Swecker (R)
Zarelli (R)

 

[ruffryder]

Um..... weren't we talking about presidents and Obama?

 

[winter brew]

Duuhh!!! Here's a sample of what I'm talking about from land use.

Senate Bill 5318 (Participating in the management of Washington's portion of the Yukon to Yellowstone Rocky mountain ecosystem.) Passed in the Senate (30 to 19) on February 13, 2008.

The following legislators voted for Senate Bill 5318:

Brown (D)
Eide (D)
Fairley (D)
Franklin (D)
Fraser (D)
Hargrove (D)
Hatfield (D)
Haugen (D)
Hobbs (D)
Jacobsen (D)
Kastama (D)
Kauffman (D)
Keiser (D)
Kilmer (D)
Kline (D)
Kohl-Welles (D)
Marr (D)
McAuliffe (D)
McDermott (D)
Murray (D)
Oemig (D)
Prentice (D)
Pridemore (D)
Rasmussen (D)
Regala (D)
Rockefeller (D)
Shin (D)
Spanel (D)
Tom (D)
Weinstein (D)

The following legislators voted against Senate Bill 5318. Make sure you call, fax, e-mail or visit them and thank them for their opposition to the bill.

Benton (R)
Berkey (D)
Brandland (R)
Carrell (R)
Delvin (R)
Hewitt (R)
Holmquist (R)
Honeyford (R)
King (R)
McCaslin (R)
Morton (R)
Parlette (R)
Pflug (R)
Roach (R)
Schoesler (R)
Sheldon (D)
Stevens (R)
Swecker (R)
Zarelli (R)

This just shows how our elected officials don't use their brain to think for themselves..they might as well be a robot or a computer that votes along party lines. Why do they even need to exist? Just once I would like to see our representatives have to vote on a issue without any contact with others or outside influence and see what the outcome would be....they are just overpaid puppets.

 

[buck50]

This just shows how our elected officials don't use their brain to think for themselves..they might as well be a robot or a computer that votes along party lines. Why do they even need to exist? Just once I would like to see our representatives have to vote on a issue without any contact with others or outside influence and see what the outcome would be....they are just overpaid puppets.

that would ce cool. okay, here's the bill, you're all locked in your office until the vote is over. no phone's, email's, faxes, nothing. you have your staff that have the same rules that you can talk too. you get the bill at 8:00 and the vote is at 3:30 pm. no communication with ANY other people than your own 10 person staff!!!!! oh yeah, and you don't know what bill could come up on any given day, totally computerized random draw!!! could make for some interesting days in congress or the parliment up here!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Wade]

Simple, get rid of earmarks.

 

[Ollie]

Simple, get rid of earmarks.

Give the president line item veto.
Term limits. 2 Terms then you are out, senate and house.

 

[Wade]

Yes Ollie, that would help a lot too. 2 term limits, and line item. But, I think there's two reasons why congressman tow the party line, one is because you want to be appointed to a subcommittee, the other is to get earmarks. The leader of each party hands out earmarks for voting with the party, and withholds earmarks for voting against the wishes of your partie's leadership. That's why most of these guys vote the line. This directly results in lost pork barrel money going to your state.

 

[Ollie]

Yes Ollie, that would help a lot too. 2 term limits, and line item. But, I think there's two reasons why congressman tow the party line, one is because you want to be appointed to a subcommittee, the other is to get earmarks. The leader of each party hands out earmarks for voting with the party, and withholds earmarks for voting against the wishes of your partie's leadership. That's why most of these guys vote the line. This directly results in lost pork barrel money going to your state.

Oh I don't disagree with ya.
However, there is more to it.
When you have entrenched politicians (like Ted Kennedy) they are impossible to get around.

They build little empires, back door deals and such. Ear marks are a big part of it, but it is only a part.

The two parties have pretty much drawn a line in the sand (so to speak). THey both have done what ever it takes to make the other look bad. For no other reason than to try and gain power and more control.

We have GOT to get a hold of the situation. We voted term limits in here in Colorado and the supreme court tossed it out. They said it had to be a nation wide deal or not at all. I wish we had a way to get it on the ballet nation wide.

The other problem is, states that have people like Ted Kennedy are perfectly willing to let you toss out your people on term limits, but they don't want to give up their ear marks and perks.

 

[ruffryder]

Give the president line item veto.

Line item veto is a very bad deal. It basically gives the president the ability to rewrite any bill that comes before him. Though we think the president would only use it to get rid of the earmarks and other crap that gets put on the end of passible bills, that would be a little naive. With the line item veto, there is no checks and balances.. all we do is just move a couple of steps closer to a dictatorship (slipped of that slope).

I don't know the answer to removing all the earmarks and pork barrel spending, but line item veto is not the way, it is too dangerous to give the president that much power.

Some info on government spending of earmarks

I looked at the 2005 data, showed almost 19 million, and though, "Oh, that is not a lot of money when comparing that to the whole Federal Budget" I then realized it was in thousands of dollars and it was actually 19 billion.

 

[Wade]

Line item veto is a very bad deal.

Whooa there Ruffy, you miss the point. Line item vetoes are a good thing. Think of it this way. Your a congressman that wants something. You push a bill through a subcommittee. The subcommittee passes it with "a few" additional riders and earmarks. Then it goes to the House for a vote, staffers stick "a few" more riders on. (believe it or not) Then it goes to the house and passes or fails, but if it fails, you make a deal to get it passed with some minor changes and "a few" more riders and earmarks. By the time the House and Senate agree (Conference committee), it might have literally thousands of riders and earmarks on it. Line item veto says this, write a bill, pass the bill, and get the bill signed by the president. In congress they even have a special name for that type of bill it's called a "clean". There's nothing to line item veto in a bill like that. It's a bill, about a problem, that congress has voted on, that everyone understands what they passed. If the president vetoes it, the senate can override it.

You ever hear that so-and-so voted against some bill. It's probably because there is an earmark or rider in the bill that the congressman disagrees with.

Geeze, you make it sound like, if apples and oranges are on a bill, the president should accept both, or veto both. The real question is what are they both doing on the same bill in the first place. The advantage of line item, is that congressman are scared to vote in a bad bill, because they know their earmark or rider won't pass the BS test, and get past the president. And, if congress really wants that line item so bad, write another bill and force it through with an override.

Tying this all back into what Ollie's talking about, without riders and earmarks, senior congressman loss a lot of their power, they can't force subordinate congressman to vote their way, because they have nothing to bribe the subordinate with, except "promising" to support their bill in the future, or control subcommittees. The congressman then vote on the merits of the bill. Stop the games in congress!

 

[ruffryder]

Whooa there Ruffy, you miss the point. Line item vetoes are a good thing.

I totally agree with what you are saying, but how are you going to limit the presidents power of the line item veto to only remove the earmarks and other crap that gets tagged along with a good bill? The answer is you can't and to assume that the president would only use the line item veto for that purpose is incorrect. The line item veto gives the president a brush to rewrite the meaning of a bill. Take a few key parts out of a bill and it becomes something entirely different.

Be carefull what you wish for, you just might get it.

BTW, I am all for removing money from earmarks and pork barrel projects, but I don't think this is the way. On another note, how do these people get the money for all the earmarks when it is not voted upon? Seems to me stop the source and the issue no longer becomes a problem.

 

[Mooseknuckle]

I'd like to believe that the Line Item Veto is the tool that would actually start to fix this craziness, but I really don't have a lot of faith that a sitting President would use it in the manner intended.

The line item would seem to tacitly give faith to a top down style of governing. It would be assumed that the people in the Oval Office (Executive Branch) would simply have the best interests of the entire country in mind if and when the line item was used.

"Sixty-one percent of the federal budget goes to entitlements and to interest payments on government borrowing, neither of which can be vetoed. An additional 21 percent goes to defense and homeland security. Realistically, the line-item veto probably would be pertinent to less than 20 percent of the budget." washigton post 10/07

On top of that, I don't think that it would be a stretch to see legislators piling more pork on bills, that way when the President strike them from an already bloated bill, that legilator can then howl about how the executive branch is abusing its power and usurping the will of the given district. Or the President becomes Howie Mandel,

"Senator Ruffy, vote for my stimulus package, or I'll strike the funding for your "Bridge to Nowhere" right out of the bill. Deal or No Deal"

I'd really like to believe that "our" President would use the power of a line item in the best interest of the country. But as partisan as we have become, as pointed out earlier about party lines, I have a hard time believing that that would be the case. It would give an incredible hammer to the party in power and to a certain degree break down the separation of powers.

Would a line item not make Congress lazy (ier)? Whats the point in working together to form a more perfect union when I can throw this junk up in this bill and let the President worry about it.

 

[ruffryder]

Just a clarification, there is a difference between earmarks and pork barrel spending, right?

The pork gets put on bills, while the earmarks are awarded without one? I think I am getting my terminology mixed up.

 

[Wade]

earmarks tell an agency how to spend the money it was appropriated.

pork- or riders, is something added on. Buy helicopters from district, to get your aircraft carrier funded.

 

[ruffryder]

earmarks tell an agency how to spend the money it was appropriated.

pork- or riders, is something added on. Buy helicopters from district, to get your aircraft carrier funded.

So line item if allowed could get rid of the pork problem, but earmarks would still be an issue.

I think we need more democracy in our system and less republic.. seems the republic guys are no longer representing the will or need of the country anymore. Anyone for a revolution??? Or is most of America sitting too fat to want to change anything?

 

[MTm7]

So line item if allowed could get rid of the pork problem, but earmarks would still be an issue.

I think we need more democracy in our system and less republic.. seems the republic guys are no longer representing the will or need of the country anymore. Anyone for a revolution??? Or is most of America sitting too fat to want to change anything?

O'Ruffy are you feeling alright... your a little to amiable lately.: