Steny Hoyer (Democratic Minority Leader) bragged on Tuesday that Democrats are better than Republicans because they passed twice as many laws. Huh? Does passing bad law better than no law? I did not know that legislating was a race to see who could pass the most laws. I guess I am really out of it!
Sorry, Representative Hoyer, the best laws are those that encourage us to take care of
ourselves and families, not those that let the government do it!
The really sad part of this is that those in government think that by passing laws, our lives are improved when in actuality, they are not. In fact, our lives as Americans decline every time another regulation, law,ordinance, stipulation is put into action. For example, we cannot have a 5 gallon toilet but must put up with the new 2 gallon ones that require multiple flushes. In January you will no longer be able to purchase incandescent bulbs but must purchase the new mercury filled, environment damaging compact fluorescent ones. Government knows better than you. You are too stupid to make these choices so big daddy must tell his dumb kids what to do!
On top of that, most law makers don't even know what is contained in the bill before they vote on it. Remember Former Speaker Pilosi saying, "we must pass the bill, so that we can find out what is in it" when talking about ObamaCare. Shouldn't those who are pushing the bill onto us, have knowledge of the intent, the outcomes and the language of the bill before casting their yea or nay? One would think so, but that is not the case.
One of the Michigan delegation, John Conyers Jr. of Detroit, when asked about the Obama Care bill said he was too busy to read it. Isn't that their job? If you don't know what is in the bill how can you vote for or against it? Isn't it your responsibility as our representative is to know what the laws you are passing means to your constituents? Oh yes, they are in a race to see how many bills they can pass in one session. That really makes a lot of sense. Pass anything and everything and who cares what the results are. It's kinda like the captain who says "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead."
One last point. In civics class in 8th grade we learned that "ignorance of the law is no excuse." I am sure you have heard that before. Unfortunately, in today's world that cannot any longer be true. If the legislators who pass the law don't know what is in it, how can a lowly citizen? I am sure that each and everyone of us break laws each and every day. Most of us do it inadvertently (a few on purpose) but how can you know when you do. The laws, ordinances and regulations passed by the many branches of government (Federal, State, Local) as well as regulatory agencies are so overwhelming that anyone who tried to keep up with them would never catch up, nor fully understand them.
Once again, government has become too large and passing of more laws does nothing but to reduce our freedoms and to generate fees for lawyers when we make a mistake and inadvertently break a law. We need to simplify our lives and government officials like
Representative Hoyer only make it more complex.
What is your opinion?
Conservative Tom
Hoyer: Dems Better than GOP Because Dems Made Twice as Many Laws
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi laughs as Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland speaks during a press conference after the House passed health care reform in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Sunday, March 21, 2010. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
(CNSNews.com) - House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that Congress has been less productive in 2011 under the GOP-controlled House than under the Democrat super majority in 2007, because in their first year in power his colleagues were able to pass more than twice as many bills as Republicans have.
He claimed that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) bears the responsibility of Congress being unproductive in 2011.
“When we took over [in 2007] we were a lot more productive, and we got more bills by a factor of two being signed by a Republican president,” Hoyer said during his weekly pen and pad press briefing.
Hoyer compared Congress’ legislative accomplishments in 2007 when Democrats took it over from Republicans to those in 2011 when Republicans took over the House from the Democrats.
“In 2007 George Bush is president of the United States, so it’s not like we were dealing with a Democratic president who simply had signed all our bills – 131 signed into law [in 2007] as opposed to 62 [in 2011] – 50 percent as productive,” said Hoyer.
He then pointed out that in 2011 28 “major bills”, which he said include the continuing resolutions and the three trade bills, were signed into law as oppose to 60 in 2007.
“Again by a factor of 100 percent more or they did 50 percent of what we did,” added Hoyer.
He then said that 165 bills were passed through the GOP-controlled House in 2011 compared to 478 bills when Democrats took over the House in 2007.
Hoyer acknowledged that a lot of the bills that passed the House in 2007 “were these congratulatory resolutions, which we’re not doing now, and as you see we have saved extraordinary amounts of time to do very substantive work.
Regarding House roll call votes, the majority leader then said, “888 votes in 2011, 1,122 votes in 2007,” later adding, “committee mark ups, 336 mark ups in 2011, almost 600, 598 mark ups in 2007.”
Hoyer added that House Republicans conducted “less hearings in 2011 than we did in 2007. Not by a great factor – by about 100 – 1,447 to 1,550.”
Hoyer went on to criticize the Republican-controlled House for voting on “political message bills for their base, a relatively narrow base.” Those bills, he said, included legislation to repeal the new health care law and “put insurance companies back in control of health care. They know that’s not going to pass the Senate. They know the president is not going to sign.”
“On the real important pieces of legislation that they knew must pass” such as the continuing resolutions and bills to increase the debt limit, Republicans “could not garner a majority of their party for it. As you know we were not able in 2007 to garner majority votes for the propositions that we thought were important. They would not have passed because the Republicans weren’t voting for it,” Hoyer said.
When asked if the speaker bears “a lot of a lot of the responsibility for the fact that Congress had an exceptional unproductive year,” Hoyer said, “Yes.”
“I certainly think the answer to that question is the Speaker is … you know he is the top legislator in the Congress, elected by all the House, who has the responsibility to move legislation,” responded Hoyer. “Certainly from that criteria, Speaker Pelosi was a very productive, effective speaker.
“We moved a lot of legislation through the House [in 2011], which the speaker must have known, we knew, had no chance in the Senate, but it was their political message they’ve been pursuing their political message, not policy. To that extent, yes I think the speaker bears responsibility. He is after all the leader,” he added.
In an Oct. 27 letter to his colleagues, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said the reforms that Republicans brought to the House in 2011 “have helped fulfill the Speaker’s commitment to a more deliberative legislative process.”
“For example,” added Cantor, “the House has taken 800 roll call votes through October 14 of this year. By the same time last year, the House had taken just 565 votes.”
“Oversight, investigation, fact-finding, and problem solving is a job best suited for our committees and because of our emphasis, committees have enjoyed a boom of activity, holding 1,276 hearings and 194 markups to date,” the majority leader added later.
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