Political Accountability Starts with Information.

[Traak]

A congressman or senator, I don't remember which, said on international news that they never read the legislations that get passed.

In this age, I move that, for the sake of the people, it becomes LAW that ever single piece of legislation is given a mandatory review period, and that the entire wording of the legislation is available, online and searchable, for free, for anyone.

This way, laws that have as their major claim helping the poor blind kids in Botswana or whatever, but have tons of earmarks such as "funding for pet project of this congressman" "removal of civil rights for anyone who isn't a member of FEMA" or whatever can be examined in detail by the PEOPLE. Lawmakers are evidently too busy to bother reading what they are passing into law, so, let the people read it. There are plenty of Americans who are ready to look at what is being shoved down their throats, as they aren't the ones doing the shoving.

It is easy to implement, brings accountability, and lets the people in on what is happening, in time to prevent it.

Further, every bit of legislation has to have whoever sponsored the bill, whoever added the earmarks, and how each and every single congressman and senator is voting on it.

In this age, electronic accountability is almost instantaneous.

There is no excuse for not having this. If we can be tweeted every single detail of just what some Hollywood starlet is up to, we can be kept abreast of what is going on in the government.

There is no excuse, whatsoever, for this to not happen.

NONE.

[Baneblade]

There is one:

No law would ever be passed again.

[Traak]

They might try that as a ruse to buck that system, but in reality, legislation would just have to be simplified, with no earmarks.

[robocpf1]

They might try that as a ruse to buck that system, but in reality, legislation would just have to be simplified, with no earmarks.

Some of these bills are hundreds of pages long - even an entire congressman's staff would take a large amount of time reading the legalese in some of this legislation. The budget is huge, for example.

There are also some "untouchable" bills that members of congress can attach pretty much whatever they want to. The Defense Budget, for one, is pretty much untouchable. If we were to give the President a line-item veto, that would be solved, but Congress won't pass a line-item veto because

1) Members of Congress would lose an important re-election tool - pork spending. Your congressman wouldn't be able to promise a new Post Office for your town and just have it lumped in with the Defense Budget anymore.

2) Some people think that's giving the President too much power, which is debatable.

I'd honestly like to see a President say "No. No, Congress, I'm NOT going to sign the Defense Budget until you remove all of these ridiculous riders. Pass it yourselves, if you don't then it's on you." Then Congress does have the option of a 2/3 vote to pass it anyway. But I'd like to see a President do it and see what happens, because it might cleanse a lot of the pork spending we see.

One of these days, I want to see a President say "You've elected me President for the next four years - I'm going to spend those four years doing everything in my power to fix all of this sh** without worrying about politics or re-election or bullsh**. If you, the people, like what I've done four years from now, re-elect me."

[Hezzy]

"Political Accountability" is an oxymoron :P