Congressional Oversight
Crude Awakening
Congress is talking tough about investigating oil speculation. That’s nice. But where were you guys when we were taking out third mortgages to fill up our gas tanks?
November 26, 2008 | Read More
Where’s Our Harry Truman?
During World War II, then Senator Truman waged a nonstop battle against defense contracting fraud and saved the country $15 billion (in 1940s dollars). In honor of Veteran’s Day, we thought we’d ask: are there any Harry Trumans in Congress fighting today’s war profiteers?
November 11, 2008 | Read More
Mad As Hell Letters
A little bird dropped this letter off in my mailbox, apparently addressed to another one of our do-nothing leaders. For all the action he’ll see from Mrs. Bono, he might as well have written his letter to Cher.
October 21, 2008 | Read More
Reason #83: The Military-Industrial-Political Complex
Eisenhower originally intended to add the word “Congressional” to his “military industrial complex” phrase. He crossed the word out at the last minute, but he should have kept it. Congress and the rest of our political establishment are deeply ingrained in our role as World Boss.
Every year, our legislators happily allocate half a trillion dollars for “defense.” Hundreds of billions go straight into the pockets of giant weapons manufacturers like Lockheed-Martin and Raytheon-not to mention companies like Halliburton that feed and house our troops or firms like Bechtel and Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) that come in to rebuild the cities…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Reason #60: Hedge Fund Madness
After the stock market crash of 1929, Congress actually tried to rein in Wall Street for once and prevent future calamities. But as so often happens, they gave their buddies in high finance a loophole in the new laws. If you ran a private investment “club” exclusively for wealthy investors, you could operate without any government oversight. For fifty years these clubs ran under the radar. Then in the 1990s the rest of the world decided they wanted in on the action. Suddenly a fifty-year-old loophole became the gateway of a radical new phenomenon: the hedge fund.
Public pension funds, university…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Unlock the Sausage Factory
The executive branch isn’t the only place where our government is far too secretive. Congress has its own problem with hiding its activities, which is particularly disgraceful because legislators are supposed to be the people’s representatives.
As I’ve discussed, one of Congress’s main jobs is to oversee the executive branch. The founding fathers intended Congress to be most directly overseen by us. But how can we do that when they hide so much of their work from us? We have a right to know what they are doing. We pay their salaries and we hire and fire them every time there…
August 25, 2008 | Read More
A Truly Public Public Sector
Our government is way too secretive. It’s a crime how little access the public actually has to the way its leaders work. All the president or his advisors have to do is stamp something “Secret” or “Classified” and it goes into the shadows, usually forever. What’s really outrageous is that the government actually makes us pay to keep secrets from us! In 2003 alone, Uncle Sam spent $6.5 billion on classifying documents and records.
There should be a greater burden of proof to conceal what should be public information. The president and his administration should have to show whatever they wish…
August 25, 2008 | Read More
Presidential Question Time?
Every Wednesday, the Prime Minister of England must stand in front of Parliament’s House of Commons for half an hour and answer tough questions from “backbench” legislators. C-Span shows these sessions here in the states. It’s an exciting and informative free-for-all, with a boisterous full house of lawmakers firing questions at the Prime Minister on all manner of subjects and expecting quick, substantive answers. Can you imagine George W. Bush getting up in front of a packed congressional chamber, on national TV no less, and answering unscripted questions? He wouldn’t have lasted two minutes.
Why shouldn’t our commander in chief have…
August 25, 2008 | Read More
Reason #21: The Fallacy of the CEO President
Another way George W. Bush tried to burnish his “outsider” credentials when he was running for the White House was by bragging that would be the first president with an MBA. He said was going to run the White House like a CEO runs a company. And when he got elected, he followed through on his promise by tapping a bunch of CEOs and high-ranking corporate executives to join his administration.
This enthusiasm for private sector-style management is all well and good. I come from a business background myself, so even I was a little taken by the notion of streamlining…
August 25, 2008 | Read More
