most/least boneheaded proposals in THE CONTRACT FOR AMERICA

finally trying to read up on the tea party movement because i'm a little concerned that they're holding the debt crisis negotations hostage ... the closest i've ever really gotten to the tea party is a good friend's extended family ... my friend is a politcal economist and his analysis is that tea partiers are basically operating at a high school level understanding of economics (and not a very strong one, at that) and that they have a hard time distinguishing between macro and micro. i am not much of an economist, but i was looking over "the contract for america" and was surprised at ... well ... how boneheaded it seemed.

so what do you think?

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Identify constitutionality of every new law: Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does (82.03%).

Reject emissions trading: Stop the "cap and trade" administrative approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants. (72.20%).

Demand a balanced federal budget: Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax modification. (69.69%)

Simplify the tax system: Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words – the length of the original Constitution. (64.9%)

Audit federal government agencies for constitutionality: Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in an audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities. (63.37%)

Limit annual growth in federal spending: Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth. (56.57%).

Repeal the health care legislation passed on March 23, 2010: Defund, repeal and replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. (56.39%).

Pass an 'All-of-the-Above' Energy Policy: Authorize the exploration of additional energy reserves to reduce American dependence on foreign energy sources and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation. (55.5%).

Reduce Earmarks: Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark. (55.47%).

Reduce Taxes: Permanently repeal all recent tax increases, and extend permanently the George W. Bush temporary reductions in income tax, capital gains tax and estate taxes, currently scheduled to end in 2011. (53.38%).

theyre all so stupid in such different ways its hard to choose!

but the flat tax and balanced budget probably

i mean the "constitutionality" proposals are kind of unbelievably stupid but, if implemented, wouldnt do the kind of harm that the rest could

Getting rid of earmarks not so bad.

making a tax system the length of the constitution is by far the most hilarious proposal

I was going to say....

They're applying this weird scrupulosity to the constitution, it's like a combination of OCD and biblical exegesis.

Stop the "cap and trade" administrative approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants.

the sheer stupidity of this is p breathtaking but its also one of the most depressing because cap and trade was a republican policy

i also dont really get how the first one is necessary? like, shouldnt all laws be constitutional?

i am not sure what kind of "economic incentives" they are talking about?

the constitutionality thing is very strange

Limit annual growth in federal spending: Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth. (56.57%).

So basically they are assuming everything we need to spend money on now is exactly what we need to spend money on in the future? Am I interpreting this correctly? Essentially this states "so long, federal disaster funds"?

I wonder if it would help to sit these ppl down and make them play SimCity

most boneheaded concept underlying these proposals has to be the fundamentalist notion that the constitution must be interpreted literally like the bible

Gore Vidal said it best at the time: The Contract ON America.

vidal was a staunch antifederalist too iirc

whoa how do i choose just one

and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words – the length of the original Constitution. (64.9%)

The whole thing stinks but in it's mindless, flag-waving demagoguery w/o common sense, the above is probably the nadir.

i am not sure what kind of "economic incentives" they are talking about?

this is fairly complex but the basic idea is you set up a market where carbon emitters can trade credits while at the same time setting a limit to the amount of carbon they are legally permitted to emit. The economic incentive is a) avoid fines and b) emit less and sell the resulting credits to other emitters. It's actually a very clever market manipulation technique. CA is implementing it next year.

does it have anything to do with campus utility data

yes!

isn't that cap and trade?

I'm not 100% sure but I think that was the point?

uh yes. cap and trade is in the first part of that sentence....?

ie Stop the "cap and trade" administrative approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants.

i am asking if tea party is against cap and trade, what plan for economic incentives do they have?

what shakey is describing sounds like current cap and trade policy

haha well thats why its so stupid, cap and trade is "providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants", youre creating a market!

i think the 'economic incentives' stuff is just hand-waving, tea partiers dont care about pollution

as long as they're writing down stupid things that have no chance of ever happening why don't they just include "Democrats are no longer allowed to run for office against Republicans"?

uh there is no current cap and trade policy in place, THAT'S THE PROBLEM. I think you guys are misreading that sentence.

oh hahaha i parsed that as them saying that they were going to stop cap and trade by providing economic etc, but i think they just cant write a sentence maybe

i am asking if tea party is against cap and trade, what plan for economic incentives do they have?

they don't have any. the whole point of that sentence is to put a stop to the referenced proposed economic incentives. that sentence simply describes how cap and trade works, and that it needs to be stopped

where in fact they are not providing a way to reduce pollutants, they just wanna get rid of cap and trade without replacing it with anything

xpost yeah

I'm surprised they even acknowledge (implicitly) that carbon is a pollutant

(and by carbon I mean CO2, just to be clear)

oh I get it ... man, sentence is like basic college composition FAIL

I may be wrong but the first time I read about cap and trade was in the Economist - it looks and sounds like a Jack Kemp version of Republican policy, not a Democratic one

the way it is written it reads like

stop X by doing Y

not

stop X (FYI X is Y)

oh hahaha i parsed that as them saying that they were going to stop cap and trade by providing economic etc, but i think they just cant write a sentence maybe

yeah thats how i read it too but shakey's reading is more coherent if also more horrible

it still stands as the best example of how far to the right the tea party is tho imo

most boneheaded concept underlying these proposals has to be the fundamentalist notion that the constitution must be interpreted literally like the bible

Every time I hear some self-styled "originalist" complain about Constitutional interpretation, or the "living Constitution," or refer to "the plain meaning of the words," I simply ask him or her, "What does 'cruel and unusual punishment' mean?" I have never, ever, ever gotten an answer.

xxp God I was learning about cap-and-trade as a college economics major back in fucking 1987 and it's amazing that it's still not a thing.

uh it IS a thing, just not at the federal level in the US. but it is in place elsewhere

EU policy

California is going to be the first state in the US to implement it, presumably in a slightly modified and improved version

Some of these are not boneheaded so much as they are insidiously designed to intentionally defund the federal government and destroy any remaining social programs. For example the "two-thirds majority needed for any tax modification." basically means no new taxes ever and would put the federal government in the same mess CA is in.

okay as dumb as this all is, the US does have cap and trade for some non-greenhouse gas pollutants, so maybe that's what they're talking about ending? http://www.epa.gov/captrade/index.html

i mean their basic thing is that they don't care about pollution anytime anywhere, but even they know that sounds bad, so they do some hand waving about economic incentives.

that's not what they're talking about. they're talking specifically about blocking all proposals to implement cap & trade of CO2 at the federal level, which Democrats have repeatedly tried to tie to energy/environmental legislation

although tbf they would be happy with abolishing the EPA entirely.

Oh I'm sure that would be one of the many agencies that wouldn't make it through their constitutionality review.

i'm just trying to provide explanation for "Stop the "cap and trade" administrative approach used to control pollution". obviously they're completely opposed to all CO2 regulation, but that's not what the above says.

its probably easiest if you just kinda think of the whole thing as "oh look a good idea. IT MUST BE DESTROYED" because thats just kinda how these people roll

plus they get to use the boogeyman of "cap and trade" which obv none of their followers actually understand, which sounds better than just straight up talking about eliminating polution control measures

Simplify the tax system: Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words – the length of the original Constitution. (64.9%)

How about this: pay your fucking taxes

"30 As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion should cooperate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should practically bear in mind, that towards the payment of debts there must be Revenue; that to have Revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised, which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any time dictate." George Washington, Farewell Address, 1792

fuck that pinko socialist tho right

probably a misquote by some commie leftist reporter

I like the idea of late-18th century commies

it doesn't really matter whether congress thinks it's passing constitutional laws because that decision is ultimately up to the supreme court

You're going to leave such important decisions up to judicial activists!? Clearly what is needed is an unaccountable blue ribbon taskforce.