After completing the mock Congress simulation, I obtained a greater understanding in how a bill becomes a law in addition to the factors that may prevent its passage. The diversity of roles that students were assigned as representatives offered a glimpse into how complex the legislative process really is. Bills are passed with the near universal intent of positively impacting the American people. However, this impact may not be universally distributed across demographics and in some cases it can hurt the constituents that one represents. With so many agendas, public and private, clashing and coinciding with each other in Congress, even the smallest of bills require a massive collective effort to become law.
During the simulation, I was a Republican that represented a suburban community whose primary economic interest resided in business. Since both Republicans and the suburban community tended to be more conservative economically, I decided to create a bill that coincided with both of our interests by decreasing the ad valorem tariff levied on imported automobiles. In addition, my Republican background presented issues with the demographic I was representing due to the fact that I generally favored less government intervention …show more content…
The majority of the bills that were discussed were very different from each other with the exception being the Carbon Tax bills that were forwarded by both Dev Gosh and Sofiya Gorban. Notable bills were the national marijuana excise tax for states that had legalized it and the tax on specific ingredients in pesticides in order to save monarch butterflies. While the two aforementioned bills did not pass due to ambiguity in funding and a lack of feasibility, I found it interesting that committees in Congress go through diverse bills like this on a daily