My pet peeve in politics

Hello Clrumfelt, I'm completely on board! And, I will also support your having deemed this a failure of our checks and balances doctrine. I would do so, because the three different branches are empowered to check each other against abuses of power. The loading of legislation is most definitely an abuse of power. It's also a great big 'I dare ya' to the other branches. The Farm Bill is a perfect example (though, so is the budget, the supplemental, the Energy Bill, etc, etc, etc...). All kinds of unrelated pork and agenda legislation was tied to the Farm Bill. For example: The House attached a re-empowering of the Depression Era Davis-Bacon laws. Outdated, outmoded legislation from over 80 years ago, just to curry favor among constituents. Though, the abuses of power do not end there: "... the bill is $20 billion over the current baseline — "way too much to ask taxpayers right now." "This bill is bloated," she said. "When grocery bills are on the rise, Congress is asking families to pay more in subsidies to wealthy farmers at a time of record farm profits." About two-thirds of the bill would pay for nutrition programs such as food stamps and emergency food aid for the needy. An additional $40 billion is for farm subsidies while almost $30 billion would go to farmers to idle their land and to other environmental programs. "Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said that the measure will drastically increase nutrition initiatives that will help 38 million U.S. families put food on their tables. She made it clear she would have preferred smaller farm subsidies, but deferred to some Democratic colleagues looking ahead to the fall campaign. "... tax breaks for Kentucky racehorse owners..." "... Reopen a major discrimination case against the Agriculture Department. Thousands of black farmers who missed a deadline would get a chance to file claims alleging they were denied loans or other subsidies." http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/taxadvice/85925 http://www.abc.org/Newsroom2/News_Letters/2008_Archives/Issue_20/President_Bush_Vetoes_Farm_Bill_that_Would_Expand_Davis_Bacon_.aspx These add-ons do represent an abuse of power -- because the legislators knew full well that they would not be able to get these 'election perks' passed in a straight up or down vote. If these draconian, power-hungry crooks in D.C. don't get their act together, they're going to be hearing a roarous clammor from the American People to give the President the line-item veto authority!!!

I also dislike the practice of mixing popular legislation and unpopular legislation in one bill, but that's not checks and balances. Checks and balances are supposed to prevent the country from becoming a monarchy.

The sad thing is that most governments tend to control all the input done by the public as well as their own members.. when elections come, i know its this way in england so im guessing in others too, you are given false hopes even though -technically- they aren't allowed to put forward anything they won't be working towards i.e poverty or tax drops. In the end it's just a facade to make the people vote for them and yet once they achieve the rank..they go out and include themselves in wars that aren't really their buisness and leave the 'promises' on a back burner. When the public are then abused nationally and worldwide for their disappointing and angering actions they do nothing to solve the problems.. Digging a deeper hole is definately something you can apply to governments and such.