The Super Congress

Groundfire Offline

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« on: August 05, 2011, 07:56:41 am »

I wanted to open up a discussion on this as I find it quite surreal and disturbing. This is mostly for US citizens but i guess feel free to chime in.

To provide some premise and context for people who have not looked in on this yet, I will try to explain a bit. (from my perspective but it is largely the opinion based from news reports so far)

Context:

As a part of the recent debt ceiling legislation to raise the US public debt limit up another 2.something Trillion dollars, there was a provision in the legislation to impart the power of creating spending plans, cuts and monetary authority to a committee of 12 Congressmen and the President.

This committee has been dubbed "The Super Congress"

From what I understand, the Super Congress, hence forth, will be in charge of all the money allocations to the U.S. government. What happens is that this (most likely unelected and handpicked) group of 12 individuals creates a budget of some kind, then sends it off to the rest of the body of congress for approval for a simple "Yes/No" vote. There will be no discussion on the subject, no opportunity for amendments, no phillibustering, just a yes or no vote.

If the rest of the Congress do not select "yes" then what happens is that it triggers an automatic 50/50 split to cut Defense and Social Programs. The cuts will be arbitrary and random (yeah right...) to put Bi-partisan pressure on Congress to reach an agreement on spending cuts. (which is whatever the S.C. wants the cuts to be. It is not Bi-partisan when 12 people only have a say on the subject)

My Problem:

I am not all together against governmental committees as they do sometimes purpose a laser focus to a problem that some Congressmen are not equipped to deal with. However, the Super Congress is infact a misnomer, it might as well be called "Congress on Steroids," and there is no indication that these hand picked 12 men (who will ultimately direct the course of the country) will be any less bought-off, corrupted, subject to threats/bullying by corporate interests, than the 400 odd other Congressmen that pretty much just voted their way out of their responsibility to making and allocating the budget of the U.S., a duty granted solely to them by the constitution of the United States.

This super congress is just an extension of the beuracracy in Washington. It consolidates a lot power into 12 elected officials who are essentially more "important" and of a now higher rank than all other elected congressmen. If the other Congressmen do not accept the Super Congress's legislation at face value (never mind reading the documents, they never do) then everything gets cut in some kind of preditory slash and burn austerity triggers.

It is governance by Threat, with a "smiley face name" (much like the Patriot Act) to hide to the public how absolutely ludicris and tyranical it is to consolidate so much power in so few hands.

The smoke and mirrors of this debt ceiling charade has allowed a potentially devastating monster to slip past under the radar. Not that we dont have one already, but this is how Oligarchies make themselves aware to the public and no one has said a damn word when we should all be in an uproar... It might as well be called Fascisim.

Thats all i have to say. Discuss.


« Last Edit: August 05, 2011, 08:02:58 am by Groundfire »	Logged

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