Discuss 4: first the bill is introduced in congress, debate on it is held and if it gets majority, it is sent to senate. After it gets approval of senate, it is sent for president's approval and after president's approval, it becomes law.
Checks and balances were created to keep any one branch of government or any person in government from having too much power.
A. LEGISLATION IS INTRODUCED
- Any member can introduce a piece of legislation
HOUSE
- Legislation is handed to the clerk of the House or placed in the hopper.
SENATE
- Members must gain recognition of the presiding officer to announce the introduction of a bill during the morning hour. If any senator objects, the introduction of the bill is postponed until the next day.
The bill is assigned a number. (e.g. HR 1 or S 1)
The bill is labeled with the sponsor's name.
The bill is sent to the Government Printing Office (GPO) and copies are made.
Senate bills can be jointlysponsored.
Members cancosponsorthe piece of Legislation.
B. COMMITTEE ACTION
- The bill is referred to the appropriate committee by the Speaker of the House or the presiding officer in the Senate. Most often, the actual referral decision is made by the House or Senate parliamentarian. Bills may be referred to more than one committee and it may be split so that parts are sent to different committees. The Speaker of the House may set time limits on committees. Bills are placed on the calendar of the committee to which they have been assigned. Failure to act on a bill is equivalent to killing it. Bills in the House can only be released from committeewithouta proper committee vote by adischargepetition signed by a majority of the House membership (218 members).
Committee Steps:
Comments about the bill's merit are requested by government agencies.
Bill can be assigned to subcommittee by Chairman.
Hearings may be held.
Subcommittees report their findings to the full committee.
Finally there is a vote by the full committee - the bill is "ordered to be reported."
A committee will hold a "mark-up" session during which it will make revisions and additions. If substantial amendments are made, the committee can order the introduction of a "clean bill" which will include the proposed amendments. This new bill will have a new number and will be sent to the floor while the old bill is discarded. The chamber must approve, change or reject all committee amendments before conducting a final passage vote.
After the bill is reported, the committee staff prepares a written report explaining why they favor the bill and why they wish to see their amendments, if any, adopted. Committee members who oppose a bill sometimes write a dissenting opinion in the report. The report is sent back to the whole chamber and is placed on the calendar.
In the House, most bills go to the Rules committee before reaching the floor. The committee adopts rules that will govern the procedures under which the bill will be considered by the House. A "closed rule" sets strict time limits on debate and forbids the introduction of amendments. These rules can have a major impact on whether the bill passes. The rules committee can be bypassed in three ways: 1) members can move rules to be suspended (requires 2/3 vote)2) a discharge petition can be filed 3) the House can use aCalendar Wednesday procedure.
C. FLOOR ACTION
Legislation is placed on the Calendar
House: Bills are placed on one of fourHouse Calendars. They are usually placed on the calendars in the order of which they are reported yet they don't usually come to floor in this order - some bills never reach the floor at all. The Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader decide what will reach the floor and when. (Legislation can also be brought to the floor by adischarge petition.)
Senate: Legislation is placed on the Legislative Calendar. There is also an Executive calendar to deal with treaties and nominations. Scheduling of legislation is the job of the Majority Leader. Bills can be brought to the floor whenever a majority of the Senate chooses.
Debate
House: Debate is limited by the rules formulated in the Rules Committee. TheCommittee of the Wholedebates and amends the bill but cannot technically pass it. Debate is guided by the Sponsoring Committee and time is divided equally between proponents and opponents. The Committee decides how much time to allot to each person. Amendments must begermaneto the subject of a bill - noridersare allowed. The bill is reported back to the House (to itself) and is voted on. A quorum call is a vote to make sure that there are enough members present (218) to have a final vote. If there is not a quorum, the House will adjourn or will send the Sergeant at Arms out to round up missing members.
Senate: debate is unlimited unlessclotureis invoked. Members can speak as long as they want and amendments need not be germane - riders are often offered. Entire bills can therefore be offered as amendments to other bills. Unless cloture is invoked, Senators can use afilibusterto defeat a measure by "talking it to death."
Vote - the bill is voted on. If passed, it is then sent to the other chamber unless that chamber already has a similar measure under consideration. If either chamber does not pass the bill then it dies. If the House and Senate pass the same bill then it is sent to the President. If the House and Senate pass different bills they are sent to Conference Committee. Most major legislation goes to a Conference Committee.
D. CONFERENCE COMMITTEE
Members from each house form a conference committee and meet to work out the differences. The committee is usually made up of senior members who are appointed by the presiding officers of the committee that originally dealt with the bill. The representatives from each house work to maintain their version of the bill.
If the Conference Committee reaches a compromise, it prepares a written conference report, which is submitted to each chamber.
The conference report must be approved by both the House and the Senate.
E. THE PRESIDENT
- the bill is sent to the President for review.
A bill becomes law if signed by the President or if not signed within 10 days and Congress is in session.
If Congress adjourns before the 10 days and the President has not signed the bill then it does not become law ("Pocket Veto.")
If the President vetoes the bill it is sent back to Congress with a note listing his/her reasons. The chamber that originated the legislation can attempt to override the veto by a vote of two-thirds of those present. If the veto of the bill is overridden in both chambers then it becomes law.
F. THE BILL BECOMES A LAW
- once a bill is signed by the President or his veto is overridden by both houses it becomes a law and is assigned an official number
Discuss 6
In the third week of June, the Fed announced that it would continue its "Operation Twist" program to reduce long-term interest rates until year's end. The program is designed to make borrowing cheaper for businesses and consumers when the Fed sells short-term U.S. debt and takes the cash to buy long-term U.S. debt. Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, said that additional Fed action may be required if unemployment doesn't fall below 8.2%. The labor market showed signs of modest improvement in the early months of 2012, but had slowed through the spring and early summer. Throughout the years of America's recent recession and subsequent slow recovery, the Fed, under chairman Bernanke, has been actively attempting to restart the faltering economy. In recent years, the Fed announced it was to buy a significant amount of mortgages.The money would be used to buy mortgage debt and government bonds, a move designed to stimulate spending, reduce long-term interest rates and fire up the stock market. This Fed action was known as quantitative easing, or QE for short. In 2008 and 2009, as the nation's economic problems became severe, the Fed provided lines of credit to financial and lending institutions. This cash infusion provided funds for consumer loans and consequent consumer buying - the engine that drives the economy. A follow-up effort to pull down long-term interest rates was initiated in 2010, with an additional $267 billion earmarked by the Fed for bond buying. Besides these actions by the Fed, America's central bank loaned money to J.P. Morgan Chase to help the banking giant takeover the failing investment bank, Bear Stearns. The Fed also established a line of credit and financing for the government's acquisition of American International Group (AIG), one of the largest global insurance firms. By mid-June this year, these loans had been totally repaid, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Beginning in 2008, the Fed has also provided cash to some central banks of foreign countries so that loans could be made to local banks with liquidity problems and for lending purposes to businesses and consumers. The loans were made by the Fed to protect U.S. markets that relied, in part, on these foreign economies. The results of all this effort by the Fed have only been partially successful. The economy enjoyed a somewhat faster growth rate in early 2012, but has since slowed. The extended "Operation Twist" program, with its projected sales of $267 billion of short-term debt and the purchase of an equal amount of long-term securities, is hoped to ignite the economy and create more jobs for millions of currently unemployed Americans.
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Recessions spread. A minor downturn in one business spreads to its suppliers and then to their suppliers. Workers are laid off (or simply fear that they will be) and buy less, spreading the downturn to other sectors of the economy. Since the 1940s, governments have tried to act to limit the damage caused by recessions, but not everyone agrees that government action can help. Let's start with the theory that governments can help in a recession. It's worth understanding, if only because it's the theory that's generally accepted by the people who actually control government action, so it's the theory that guides what the government actually tends to do. Economists classify recessions depending on how they start. Consumer-led recessions Sometimes consumers just start to buy less. That can happen either because their budgets are squeezed (such as by rising oil prices) or because their confidence is shaken (such as by rumors of war) or both (such as by falling home prices). Companies seeing a downturn in business order less; their workers buy less (especially if they lose their jobs); pretty soon everyone is doing less business and you've got a recession. "If only," the economists muse, "there were someone who could go ahead and keep spending as if there were no recession." Which led to the insight that governments could go on buying as if there were no recession. That would tend to put a floor under possible declines in economic activity. Of course it's a small step from there to having the government spend more during a recession, in an effort to kick-start economic activity. Business- or finance- led recessions Sometimes businesses (or their banks) cut back even before consumer activity shows a downturn. That's most likely to happen when they fear a downturn and want to position themselves in advance. There's a call for governments to act as "spenders of last resort" in this situation as well. Especially in finance-led recessions, though, there's also a call for the Federal Reserve to reduce interest rates as a way to head off a finance-led recession. (And, since nowadays finance-led recessions are almost always started by the Fed having raised interest rates, this makes a certain kind of sense.) In other countries, replace "Federal Reserve" with the name of your central bank. It's all about the same. Not everyone agrees that government action is appropriate when a recession threatens. These skeptics are rather more common among the net-savvy crowd than they are in the halls of government, but it's a position that has advocates even there. There are two threads to the contrary view. Even within the mainstream view, there's agreement that recessions are often caused by government action. Ordinary policy actions have some effect on the economy--and actions taken to "fine-tune" the economy especially so. Tax increases, budget cuts, and regulatory actions tend to suppress business activity. (Tax cuts and additional spending--especially deficit spending--tend to increase business activity, but even that can cause problems, as I'll discuss in the next section.) Even ostensibly neutral actions can shift money around in the economy, boosting one sector while suppressing another, and it's impossible to know whether on balance the result will make a recession more likely. Of course, the main way the government causes recessions is by raising interest rates. The central bank does this to head off inflation (caused by the central bank actions that lowered interest rates earlier). This cycle is often compared to driving a car by alternately stomping on the accelerator and then the brake. While everybody agrees that policy actions have effects on the economy, the mainstream view is that this means we should carefully consider policy actions and try to balance the effects in ways that minimize the harm--and if actual results in the economy show that things have gone awry, the government should take further action to try to "fix" the problem. The contrary view is that the government action is the problem, and that there's no way that more of the problem is going to make things better. (People like to compare it to having a drink to treat a hangover.) The policy recommendations that come from this perspective tend to support low taxes, low spending, less regulation--basically, less government altogether. The other thread is a bit more technical. The theory is that in any business expansion, there will be people who make unwise investments. There will always be people who are too optimistic, too confident in their own forecasts, or who simply misread shifts in people's tastes. If there's only a little malinvestment, it can be cleaned up by the people who made it. The swimming-pool installer who bought a new backhoe, figuring that global warming would mean that his business could only go up, may find that the housing downturn has made it tough for many of his customers to get the home equity loan they need to pay for a new pool. If nothing else goes wrong, he can probably work his way out of the problem--lower profits while he pays off the under-used backhoe, but not a business failure. Inflation always causes malinvestment, because inflation fools people into thinking that things are going especially well. Businesses see a surge in businesses, which prompts them to expand. When it turns out that the surge was all illusion (they were getting more dollars, but the dollars were worth less), they've already committed to an expansion that has no future. Government spending produces malinvestment a well, as businesses gear up to produce whatever the government is buying today. It's obviously not the best use for the investment (or you wouldn't need government spending to support it), plus it's highly vulnerable to being a very bad investment, if government priorities change. When there's a lot of malinvestment, though, is not so easy to fix. A company that has borrowed to expand, but doesn't get enough business to service the new debt, is in trouble. Even businesses that aren't in debt can shut in a downturn. If business gets bad enough, it's cheaper to just close the doors than to pay to keep the place staffed and the lights turned on. The key here, though, is that an investment is only malinvestment if the price is too high. That is, the pool-digger's extra backhoe may be a lousy investment at $100,000, but if someone else can pick it up at a liquidation sale for $50,000, that might not be malinvestment at all. So, the thrust of this thread is that recessions are how malinvestment gets worked out of the economy. Some business go under, others sell off underperforming pieces. The result is an economy where productive assets are reallocated to where they can be used profitably--at which point the stage is set for a sound recovery. If the government heads off the recession, by cutting interest rates too aggressively, or by buying whatever it is that isn't being bought, the malinvestment goes uncorrected, leaving potentially productive assets in the hands of people who can't use them to their best effect, while leaving other people (who could use them) unable to thrive. People on both sides of the issue see that government action leads generally to malinvestment. For the people who advocate for the government trying to help, that's unavoidable--and simply needs to be dealt with by more government action. For the people who advocate against, it's a reason for the government to do as little as possible. As to whether governments can help in a recession, the answer clearly depends on where you stand. Cutting interest rates is great for people who have variable-rate debt (or would like to), but it sucks for people who have cash. Higher government spending is all well and good for people who build roads or grow corn, but doesn't mean much for the guy who runs a bakery or works at a video store (except, eventually, higher taxes). In the end, the people who are helped are very specific and very aware of the help, while others are either not harmed, or are harmed only in a diffuse, general way (along with everyone else). The result is that the political pressure always tends to be on the side of more help. Whether it helps the economy or not, it definitely helps the people who get it, and that's enough for the politician to keep at it.
DISCUSS 5
First Amendment perspective: The Great Recession is turning out to be a great front and cover for what I term the “Great Reconstruction” of American Society. It is the overturning of democracy in favor of Corporate Oligarcy, and it is the desctruction of the Middle Class to create Two Americas – the very wealthy, and the very poor. The War on Women that we are seeing it really a sub-part of that agenda. By forcing women to submit to the morality of their employers, they are being turned into second-class citizens. A couple of threads come together in my mind to make this conclusion. 1) The Banks were too big to fail, and were given bailouts and Investment Banks like Goldman, Merril Lynch, and others were allowed to convert to Bank Holding Companies within 48 hours of failure. This gave them access to Federal Reserve lending and discount windows. This process should have had a much longer vetting, but did not. It was fast-tracked. That tells you who runs the show. The Financial Industry. 2) Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress passed the bipartisan Gramm-Leech-Bliley Act in 1999 (the Financial Services Modernizatino Act of 2000). Almost on Christamas Eve of 1999 to be exact. I remember because I was a law student that year, and I was taking financial analysis and securities law courses that Fall and Spring Semester. The professors were abuzz with discussion of the new laws, and they made us do papers analyzing parts of the bill. The number one thing I remember learning is that this was a dismantling of Glass-Steagall and the Securities laws of FDR passed in the wake of the 1929 Stock Market Crash. Specifically – this new law tore down the Firewalls between Banking, Insurance, and Investment Banking. From 1933 until 1999, those 3 sectors were not allowed to comingle funds, deposits, income, assets, etc. The Greg Smith op-ed is insightful, since he started working at Goldman in 2000, exactly when these protections had just been dismantled. In addition, this law created the plethora of newly designed FINANCIAL DERIVATES and allowed for the SECURITIZATION OF MORTGAGE BACKED SECURITIES. As some prominent economisists have noted, this was nothing short of MORAL HAZARD. 3) The Citizens United Case, as we all know, enshrines the concepts that MONEY is SPEECH and that Corporations are People. More specifically, it provides for a framework in which the CORPORATE ENTITY is treated as an individual for CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTION purposes. A Corporation is therefore allowed to asserts it FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS as if it were an individual. 4) The War on Women that appears to have finally become the new frontline of political reality. While this is, at one level, a continuation of the Conservative attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade and establish a religious-right perspective on this nation, it is much more than that. Case in point. Arizona House Bill 2625. I’ve linked to the article at statepress.com, but you can find analysis of that at Think Progress and other progressive sites. In summary, this bill will require women to bring a NOTE to their EMPLOYER proving that they are not having sex, or that they are not using the Birth Control Pill to prevent pregnancy. In other words, women, whether married or not, must get their Employers’ permission to use birth control. And if the Employer does not believe in Birth Control Pills as a way to prevent Pregnancy (“Sex is only for Procreation and NOT Pleasure” mindset) then it means that the Employer will have the RIGHT under the Arizona Law (and other laws passed by likeminded states) to PREVENT COVERAGE BY THE INSURANCE CARRIER for that birth control pill. The law also requires the women to show their medical histories to the employer to prove their point. The entire decision rests with the Employer. And the women who work in “right-to-work” states will also be at risk of instant termination, without cause, for failure to do anything the Employer likes. Those states are very difficult to prosecute employment discrimination claims in, particularly in the 5th circuit (Texas, Lousiana, Mississippi). The result is that the women must oblige the employer or risk being fired. And above all, cannot obtain birth control pills without her employer’s MORAL CONSENT.