Last week, Congress passed a flawed transportation/flood insurance/student loan bill that became law soon thereafter. The bill’s issues, which I outlined at the above link, include the following:
- The conference report combined three unrelated bills into one, a too-common practice on Capitol Hill to offset costs and garner votes by putting “must-pass” legislation around bills of lower priority. TARP and the PPACA are examples of bills that followed this pattern.
- Further student loan subsidization is a bad thing for college costs and quality. The lower rate was put into place as a “temporary” policy in 2007, but like many so-called temporary measures it has now been extended. Apparently elections are more important than the quality of higher education in Washington – a shocking concept, I know.
- Procedurally, the legislation was passed with a waiver so Members didn’t have to stay in Washington until Saturday. While I’m usually all in favor of Congress leaving town, it’s yet another small indication of where priorities are for many Members – on their own agendas, not on the promises of transparency or putting their constituents first.
- As Heritage notes, it simply spends too much.
Fortunately, the taxpayers may actually benefit in the long run from this bill. Yesterday, The Hill reported that Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced two important, and long overdue, bills that coincidentally address two of the issues I tackled above:
After blasting the Senate last week for passing a 600-page bill no one had time to read, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced legislation that would force the Senate to give its members one day to read bills for every 20 pages they contain.
“For goodness sakes, this is a 600-page bill. I got it this morning,” Paul said Friday, just before the Senate approved a massive bill extending highway funding, federal flood insurance and low student loans rates.
“Not one member of the Senate will read this bill before we vote on it,” he added.
Paul also introduced related legislation Friday, S. 3359, that would prohibit the inclusion of more than one subject in a single bill.
Of course, these reforms should have never been up for debate in the first place – having time to read something fully before supporting it and letting ideas succeed or fail on their own merits are basic norms everywhere but in Washington. Let’s hope Paul is successful in his effort, and that conservatives everywhere back him to the hilt. Our country is about to fall off a fiscal cliff, but if these measures are put into place perhaps we can slow the drop long enough to get our footing again.
About Dustin Siggins
