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Show me the fine print!
Over at her website, Michelle Malkin is drawing attention to a so-called “placeholder” section in the cap and trade bill that House members approved last Friday. Apparently, the reserved section enables bill-writers to insert new language into the bill even after the legislation was already approved.
According to Barney Frank, there’s nothing to fret about because “the placeholder in the cap and trade bill apparently will deal with regulations of financial derivatives market associated with reducing carbon emissions. Frank said he was confident a ‘good system will be in place.’”
Given Frank’s track record, however, Malkin is less than enthused about just taking his word for it. Instead she wonders why an administration that is suddenly so concerned about “fine print” has failed to disclose all of the fine print in this latest bill.
back to top16 Comments to “Show me the fine print!”
The tyrants who rule us are terrifying.
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Given Malkin’s own record, it is hard to know how to take this.
I suspect this is pretty much standard procedure. If so, her premise is that of bad faith, that the participants are singularly flawed. Hmmm. But with that premise then the outrage itself is dubious as well, right? If I start out thinking Kristin Chapman say, is particularly evil (a hypothesis only), then any protest I make of her would be expected from me. So while Malkin may be entertaining (for me for all the wrong reasons), nonetheless I would not give her a whole lot of weight.
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Harris, did you read Malkin’s piece? See this: “Rep. Joe Barton mentioned it was unprecedented to have such a mechanism (allowing bill-writers to insert language to be determined after the law was approved) in a bill up for final passage.”
The bill is “up for final passage,” but a no doubt controversial portion of it hasn’t been written yet. Given that Barney Frank is the main perpetrator, a presupposition of bad faith is justified.
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What’s with the worry about the fine print?
From what I hear, the members of the Vast All-Wing Political Conspiracy don’t even read the regular print in these huge bills.
Fine print. Hmph!
The whole bill smacks of a faith-based initiative writing a blank check with freedom, not dollars, being the currency of choice.
Disclaimer: That’s not a political statement; rather, it’s common sense.
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Standard procedure? Really?
What is the point of voting on something if a) you haven’t read it, and b) it can be altered after the vote? How does that make you a competant legislator?
If the Supreme Court issued a ruling without the legal reasoning behind it, would you accept it? I don’t think so. So why do you simply accept it from your legislature?
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Time for another revolution.
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Practically every bill is being passed now without having been read. So I am not surprised that they are passing them before they’re completely written.
Legislation has become just an empty formality. Obama can simply enact and spend whatever he wants regardless of the cost. Having no checks and balances even from the media, the soft fascism of social progressives advances rapidly.
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I am beginning to feel like ZZ when all s/he posted was “It’s all Bush’s fault.” My mantra is “What happened to transparency?”
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“According to Barney Frank, . . .
That pretty much says it for me.
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Can we bring a bit of reality to the table? The Climate Bill must also pass the Senate and then conference committee.
But even so, Thomas does provide an actual text. Here. There’s the transparency response.
So I’m scratching my head. What does seem to be the case is a massive case of the assumption of bad faith. But how is that warranted? In particular in looking at the actual substance of the section (it deals with Agriculture)?
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“But how is that warranted?”
You can’t be serious!
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“But how is that warranted?”
You can’t be serious!
Ah NJL, I am.
The difficulty with political derangement is that allows for now discrimination. Makes no difference if it’s Bush or Obama (or Clinton or Palin), when one suffers from the syndrome, the assertion is enough.
The proof of Malkin’s derangement is that once the text comes out, her fears for this bill are unfounded. The word from Rep. Frank that “a good system will be in place” is in fact, proven out. If I say I doubt you, but then the results show you were right, what ought we conclude about my opinion? And what ought we think when I make another opinion?
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Harris. Your link doesn’t work. As for bad faith, how about the fact that nearly everything Obama has said so far has been a lie? How about the fact that Obama is purposely hiding the fact that artificially raising energy costs will raise the cost of everything? How about the fact that Obama has proposed nothing of substance in terms of energy independence or America’s long term energy needs.
This bill does one thing and one thing only: it raises energy costs. Can you please explain how that solves anything?
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I can’t believe it.
First the liberals on this site defended passing bills without reading them. Now they’re defending passing bills without them even being written…
Well heck then. Lets just vote for peace on earth. It’s a good intention eh? That’s all it takes right?
I can’t watch this crap anymore.
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Xion:
Oh, that is a bummer, isn’t it?
Evidently the problem is that the text of the bill is the result of search, and so the search term URL disappears after a short period of time (I know, TMI)
So here is the link to Thomas. HB 2454 is highlighted at the top. When you click on it, go to “Text of Bill” then select version 3., the bill as passed. You can then scroll through to the Disposition of Allowances and the (missing) `SEC. 788. SUPPLEMENTAL AGRICULTURE AND RENEWABLE ENERGY INCENTIVES PROGRAMS.
As to your question about raising costs:
The broad theory is that our use of energy is under-priced, relative to the damage done. The difficulty is that these emissions create broad, generalized harms (externalities) — over which no one producer of pollution has a particular interest in reducing.
to put it another way, our short term and our long term interests are out of sync. In that case, we can opt for one of three approaches: do nothing — push the decision down the road to some other generation; move to a directive economy; or find some sort of distributed control mechanism. There’s a lot of sense to this last one; a similar program aimed SO2 production, substantially cut acid rain in the Northeast. Market systems can work.
Last, of course you can say “do nothing” but that only postpones your decision process. At some point the social and environmental costs will become to great to tolerate — that is why there is a great deal of wisdom in acting sooner rather than later, for all the usual reasons (cheaper, more considered — not in haste, etc).
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#15 OK. So you say act sooner than later. So do I.
However, your solution (and Obama’s) to the energy crisis is to do NOTHING except make it more expensive. My solution is to find new energy sources and provide an energy infrastructure to support it.
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