The Lobbyists' Ability To Control The Message

from the we-say-what-they-want dept

It certainly won't come as much of a surprise to readers around here that lobbyists from Roche/Genentech were able to get 42 different members of Congress to include text they had written into the Congressional Record. For way too long, we've seen how much politicians seem to rely on lobbyists to write the legislation, create the talking points and (at times) even deferring questions to the lobbyists themselves. Is it any wonder that lobbyists have become the new celebrities?

But what is rather stunning about the NY Times story on how Genentech's talking points were mentioned (with multiple Congressional reps using the exact same language) is how unconcerned everyone is about it. The lobbyists wrote up talking points for both sides of the aisle. It wasn't about being in support or against the current healthcare bill, but just to get these Congressional Reps "on the record" in supporting key concepts, so that those same lobbyists can go back and point to such "bipartisan" support in the future, even if the Congressional reps themselves don't even know what they're talking about.

The NY Times talked to a bunch of Congressional offices about this, and they all seem to admit freely that the language came from Genentech lobbyists, and they incorporated it directly (sometimes with a few minor changes) into the remarks that get put into the Congressional record. This isn't the fault of Genentech or its lobbyists -- who, of course, are going to push for such things. The really damning part is that all of these Congressional reps don't seem to think there's any problem at all with simply taking text directly from a company and putting it into their own remarks as if they agree on the concept, when they don't even seem to understand what they're saying half of the time. Often these sorts of Congressional remarks are later used to show "Congress' intent" in doing certain things. But, perhaps they should just start being upfront and honest about the fact that these remarks are "the industry's intent" and simply signing them with the companies that actually wrote the language (or at least tagging the remarks with the name of the company/industry group that wrote it).

28 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Congressional Reps Rewrite AT&T's Google Voice Complaint, And Send It To The FCC

from the at-least-try-to-be-creative dept

A few weeks back, we noted how AT&T was trying to claim that Google violated the very net neutrality rules the search giant is pushing for by blocking calls on Google Voice to various free conference service lines. However, as we explained at the time, the issues are totally different. However, from AT&T's standpoint, they get to try to kill two birds with one stone. First, AT&T would love to kill the regulatory arbitrage situation that allows small rural telcos to charge incoming call providers ridiculous connection fees. So, complaining about Google Voice draws more attention to that issue. Separately, it gets net neutrality questions moved away from AT&T and onto Google, which AT&T generally dislikes.

Still, it's hard not to be even more cynical when a bunch of politicians suddenly pick up interest in this issue, and ask the FCC to investigate Google using language that appears quite similar to the letter AT&T sent to the FCC. As Broadband Reports notes in that last link, it sure looks like AT&T got a bunch of friendly politicians to suddenly express outrage over something most of them didn't understand -- and they just had to rewrite the letter AT&T had already used. It's as if these companies and politicians don't even care how blatant it is that the lobbyists actually set the agenda.

57 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Music Publishers, Songwriters To Congress: Our Royalties Should Be Guaranteed, No Matter What The Market Says

from the songs-from-luddites dept

In digging deeper into the request from music publishers and songwriters' representatives after they started demanding performance royalties for the 30-second previews in iTunes, Greg Sandoval was able to get a copy of the letter that was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning copyright laws from the National Music Publishers Association, ASCAP, BMI and the Songwriters Guild. Reading the quotes is stunning, in that you could basically paraphrase them as saying "we are luddites -- do not let technology change the way the world works." Here's one quote:

"Technology should not be used to strip rights from songwriters, composers and music publishers. The choice of certain audiovisual delivery systems or methods over others should not result in a diminution of creators' rights or royalties."

Read that one carefully. They are saying that as technology changes, and as the market changes, their royalties should never be allowed to drop. Notice that they're not taking responsibility for adapting to a changing market. They're not saying that they need to adjust and put in place smarter business models. No, they're saying that Congress somehow needs to guarantee that no matter what happens in the market, their royalties remain the same.

What's really revealing is that this quote highlights the fact that these representatives view their royalties as "rights" to be protected -- not revenue to be earned.

No wonder they're lashing out and doing all sorts of ridiculous stuff like trying to get extra royalties on embedded videos, ringtones and 30 second previews. These are the same groups that have publicly decided they need to try to start a PR campaign against people who are trying to protect user rights and fair use. Since that time, we've noticed various people associated with ASCAP and the Songwriters Guild putting up various blogs attacking copyright skeptics in the most ridiculous ways. There's one, which isn't worth pointing out, where a lawyer who works with these groups regularly mocks Larry Lessig, William Patry, Michael Geist and myself -- using nicknames and making up fanciful stories about us. It's the sort of activity you'd expect from a 12-year-old.

It looks like these groups simply feel entitled to having the government force everyone to hand over money. Songwriters who belong to these organizations are being led down a dangerous path. It seems like there's room in the market for groups to represent songwriters' interests without being anti-fan or anti-technology. Quite clearly, ASCAP, BMI, NMPA and the SGA do not fall into that category. Instead, they're pretending that the world owes them money just for existing, and they're going to lash out anyone who tries to suggest otherwise.

59 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Did AT&T Lie To Congress About Using Behavioral Advertising?

from the questions-questions-questions dept

Congress is apparently holding hearings this week about behavioral advertising -- the controversial online practice of targeting ads to people based on where they surf. In the past, Congress has suggested that firms such as NebuAd that do this are breaking the law. However, it appears that AT&T may have been less than truthful in its own testimony. The company took a hardline stance against behavioral advertising that wasn't clear and set up as an opt-in approach. Yet, as MediaPost notes, a top behavioral advertising company named Audience Science, lists AT&T as a customer and has a testimonial on the site. When a Congressional Rep asked AT&T's policy VP who was testifying about the company (accidentally calling it "Audio Science"), AT&T claimed it didn't have a relationship with the company. When the MediaPost reporter asked Audience Science about all of this, AT&T's logo suddenly disappeared from the company's website.

Now, it seems quite likely that this is all a rather innocent mistake -- and the AT&T VP, Dorothy Attwood, simply didn't know about the company's relationship with Audience Science. AT&T is a big company, and certainly the left hand might not always know what the right hand is doing -- but that's a big part of the problem here. Even when an official company policy might be to avoid these sorts of things, there's as half decent chance that someone lower down on the totem pole has signed off on a deal to make use of these technologies.

10 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Lobbyists Get Congress To Investigate P2P Software... Rather Than Bad Security And Employee Carelessness

from the well,-look-at-that dept

Just a couple weeks ago, I received a ridiculous PR pitch from the entertainment industry lobbying group Arts+Labs, suggesting that a story that "hasn't really gotten the attention it deserves" is the "threat" from P2P software being used to "expose private documents to the world." The PR guy offered to help walk me through the process of downloading Limewire and finding such "exposed documents." Of course, what the PR guy left out is the reason this story hasn't received that much attention: because it's a bogus story that's been debunked for years -- but it's a favorite of the entertainment industry and its lobbyists in trying to come up with any reason to get Congress to issue laws against file sharing software.

However, it was obvious that this PR campaign was a setup: something bigger was underway... and, indeed, now we find out that these entertainment industry lobbyists have had a chance to bubble up yet again this silly idea to Congress, leading to yet another investigation of file sharing services, with a specific focus on Limewire. Of course, we did this already. Two years ago, there was a bunch of grandstanding in Congress against Limewire because some gov't officials had leaked documents possibly (though, not definitely) via Limewire. But, of course, the target was wrong. It wasn't Limewire that was the problem, it was government employees being stupid and setting up private government documents in their shared folders and poor government computer security systems that allowed this to happen. But rather than blame bad gov't computer security or clueless users, the government set upon Limewire as the problem (encouraged, of course, by the entertainment industry's lobbyists).

The PR campaign and the Congressional investigation didn't happen in the same month by accident. You can pretty much assume that the whole effort was orchestrated by these lobbyists as yet another misguided attack on file sharing software, playing up the ridiculous idea that it's the software that's responsible for people leaking documents, rather than user stupidity and bad security.

It's nice to see some in the mainstream press not fall for this bogus story. The LA Times notes how pointless this effort is, pointing out how the whole thing is misguided, and accurately noting:

Perhaps the real motive here is to find grounds to ban the software outright, which would please Hollywood but wouldn't solve the problem.

Of course, not all mainstream publications bothered to figure that out. Five days after Arts+Labs pitched me on the "Limewire-is-a-security-leak-problem" story, the WSJ published exactly that story, including (of course!) a quote from Arts+Labs, and no quotes from anyone who would point out what a made up story it is, and how it's been planted by the entertainment industry in an effort to create a moral panic against P2P software. I thought the mainstream press was supposed to be where real journalists did their homework rather than just parroting the story lobbyists hand them?

16 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Congress Ponders Cybersecurity Power Grab

from the no-cybersecurity-licenses-please dept

There was a lot of attention paid last week to a new "cybersecurity" bill that would drastically expand the government's power over the Internet. The two provisions that have probably attracted the most attention are the parts that would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" and then seize control of "any compromised Federal government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network." Perhaps even more troubling, the EFF notes a section that states that the government "shall have access to all relevant data concerning (critical infrastructure) networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access." Read literally, this language would seem to give the government the power to override the privacy protections in such laws as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Thankfully, Congress can't override the Fourth Amendment by statute, but this language poses a real threat to Fourth Amendment rights.

One clause that I haven't seen get the attention it deserves is the provision that would require a federal license, based on criteria determined by the Secretary of Commerce, to provide cybersecurity services to any federal agency or any "information system or network" the president chooses to designate as "critical infrastructure." It's hard to overstate how bad an idea this is. Cybersecurity is a complex and fast-moving field. There's no reason to think the Department of Commerce has any special expertise in certifying security professionals. Indeed, security experts tend to be a contrarian bunch, and it seems likely that some of the best cybersecurity professionals will refuse to participate. Therefore, it's a monumentally bad idea to ban the government from soliciting security advice from people who haven't jumped through the requisite government hoops. Even worse, the proposal leaves the definition of "critical infrastructure" to the president's discretion, potentially allowing him to designate virtually any privately-owned network or server as "critical infrastructure," thereby limiting the freedom of private firms to choose cybersecurity providers.

When thinking about cyber-security, it's important to keep in mind that an open network like the Internet is never going to be perfectly secure. Providers of genuinely critical infrastructure like power grids and financial networks should avoid connecting it to the Internet at all. Moreover, the most significant security threats on the Internet, including botnets and viruses, are already illegal under federal law. If Congress is going to pass cybersecurity legislation this session (and it probably shouldn't) it should focus on providing federal law enforcement officials with the resources to enforce the cyber-security laws we already have (and getting the government's own house in order), not give the government sweeping and totally unnecessary new powers that are likely to be abused.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

14 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Patent Reform Bill Reintroduced; More Of The Same

from the the-debate-is-misleading... dept

This is hardly a surprise, as it's been expected for quite a while, but the same folks who have been pushing a patent reform bill in the past have reintroduced essentially the same legislation that has been unable to advance far enough in previous Congresses. As in past years, supporters of the bill insist this is the year it will get passed. While there are plenty of good things in the bill, there's also an awful lot of bad things as well.

Unfortunately, the stuff that I think is good and necessary in the bill, such as limiting damages to the actual contribution of the patented technology, are what's considered "controversial," whereas many of the things I think are bad, such as switching from a "first to invent" to a "first to file" system aren't being considered that controversial at all. On the whole, this bill would solve some problems, while creating plenty of other problems, so I have a lot of trouble supporting it.

I can see why some big tech companies are supporting it, as it would definitely help some of the problems those companies face, but I don't think it does very much to fix the overall system. That said, it's pretty amusing to see the patent maximalists insisting that this bill will be the downfall of the American economy. There's nothing in the bill that would indicate that's true at all. It might cause some trouble for some firms that don't do anything in the marketplace, but about the only parts of the economy that will be harmed are a few patent attorneys (and some patent hoarders).

30 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Throwing Money At Problems Usually Is Not The Solution

from the time-to-work-smarter dept

Thomas Friedman has stirred up some controversy with his suggestion that the government (instead of giving it to dying automakers) should give $20 billion to top venture capital firms and have them invest in new innovation. The initial thought makes sense, and, in fact, we discussed something quite similar a few months ago -- though, concerning a new venture fund in the UK, rather than giving money to existing funds. Indeed, if we must throw money at the economy, it should be to invest in new innovation, rather than throwing good money after bad. However, Fred Wilson points out that the top VC firms don't want or need the cash, and in fact, adding more money to the venture investing pool at this point might cause a lot more harm than good.

And, that brings up an important point, worth discussing, that the government seems to be missing: throwing money at problems is very rarely the best solution. Often the problems are caused by too much money sloshing around (see: Wall Street). Dumping more money into the system just encourages the same inefficiencies and bad decision making. The real fix to problems is to wipe out the broken parts of the system, not fund them further. Yes, letting some of these businesses fail will have rippling effects into other parts of the economy -- but shouldn't the focus be on helping out those aspects, rather than rewarding companies like GM and Chrysler that have screwed up dreadfully?

While there's something to be said for taking money when it's available, plenty of experienced entrepreneurs know that having too much money on hand is almost as bad as not having enough. Having too little money makes you focus and makes you creative out of necessity. Having too much money makes you lazy and puts you in a position to hide or ignore the real issues for way too long. What we should be working on right now is fixing the systemic problems throughout our economy -- not papering them over with cash.

23 Comments | Leave a Comment..

TV Stations Say Thanks, But No Thanks To Analog Switch Delay

from the anarchy-on-the-airwaves! dept

As was widely expected, Congress voted last week to delay the switch-off of analog TV signals, sort of. It did move the hard deadline of February 17 until June 12, but it is also allowing TV stations to switch off their analog broadcasts any time before then, and many stations say they'll do so as soon as they can, beginning next week. Over a third of the nation's TV stations plan to move ahead with the switch, as planned, eager to shed the additional cost of broadcasting both in digital and in analog. So instead of a hard deadline, some stations will drop off of the analog air next week, others not until June, and others somewhere in between -- a situation that hardly seems easier to understand for the confused and lost among us that the delay was supposed to help. Furthermore, how does this sort of staggered transition help sort out the converter box coupon mess?

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

58 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Wikileaks Hits The Jackpot With Congressional Research Service

from the transparency-is-the-name-of-the-game dept

A bunch of folks have been submitting the rather impressive fact that Wikileaks now has 6,780 reports from the Congressional Research Service free to download. As the post on Wikileaks notes, CRS reports are technically public domain, but have remained in a quasi-secret state, because CRS only releases them to members of Congress. However, the research reports tend to be considered quite credible, non-partisan, timely and useful. That's often why Congress members don't want them anywhere near the public. However, there have been some members of Congress who recognize what a travesty this is, and have been pushing to make the reports open. You have to wonder if a staffer for one of them is responsible for the "leak."

It's great, then, to see these documents get some well-deserved, and much-needed sunlight. However, the really interesting thing will be what the response is from both Congress and the CRS -- both of whom have mostly fought against any attempts to publicly release the documents. It will also be worth watching whether or not these leaks continue as new CRS research comes out, or if there will be something of a crackdown to try (and inevitably fail) to get this information out there.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Congress Delays Digital TV Transition: Everyone Loses!

from the good-job,-Congress dept

We were a bit surprised when the House rejected a plan unanimously approved by the Senate to delay the transition from analog to digital over the air TV broadcasting from February to June of this year. However, we knew it couldn't last. A little horse-trading and favor-promising and the new bill has won approval from both parts of Congress with Obama expected to sign it (wonder if he'll wait five days for comments?). The end result is that pretty much everyone loses -- other than some grandstanding politicians and the 12 or so people who haven't upgraded and who will upgrade between now and June. Everyone else -- including the folks who still won't be ready when June rolls around lost out here. It will slow down a variety of other important wireless offerings and increase confusion in a market where the February cut-off date was drilled into the minds of millions.

45 Comments | Leave a Comment..

More Details On Proposed DTV Delay: This Just Gets Better And Better

from the idea:-bad,-details:-worse dept

As mentioned, the House has rejected the attempt to push through the delay to the digital TV transition that the Senate approved earlier in the week. The measure needed a two-thirds majority to pass in this attempt, which it did not get. However, it did garner a simple majority, which means it will probably be brought to the floor and passed in the next few days. But it's worth looking more closely at some of the details to understand that this proposal seems likely to make things worse. While the general gist of the measure is that it would delay the transition until June 12th, it actually says that broadcasters can switch off their analog signals any time between February 17 and June 12. So it removes the hard deadline date, instead letting broadcasters make the transition whenever they like in a four-month period. If there's already so much confusion over the transition that a delay is needed, how will the switch from a hard deadline to a whenever-you-feel-like-it plan help? It would seem that one way to ensure people find out about the transition would be to let it happen: if people lose their TV signal (and really care that much), they'll take some action to rectify it. Of course, that still wouldn't solve one of the big issues of the transition: the bungled converter coupon program.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

32 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Surprise: House Says No To Digital TV Transition Delay

from the wow dept

When the Senate unanamously agreed to delay the digital TV transition to June, it seemed like a formality that the House would agree as well. Apparently not. Plenty of people have spoken up about how silly it is to delay the transition, and it appears that our Congressional Representatives actually have voted down their version of the bill, meaning that the transition date is still on for February... for now. It wouldn't be at all surprising to see some horse trading, where some Reps get some sort of payoff in order to change their vote.

30 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Senate Delays Digital TV Transition; Will The Situation Be Any Different In June?

from the doubtful dept

It still makes little sense to us to delay the digital TV switchover beyond February 17th. The switch has already been delayed for nearly a decade, and anyone who doesn't know about it yet isn't likely to know about it when June roles around either. Yet, for political expediency, it looks like the Senate has approved plans to move the transition back to June (the House still needs to vote on this, but it seems likely to pass), which will end up slowing the rollout of various wireless services, thereby harming most consumers a lot more than this helps them. Hopefully, in June, politicians don't roll over again and push back the date again.

56 Comments | Leave a Comment..

State Of The Net: More Of The Same On Digital Copyright

from the pulling-the-trigger dept

At the Congressional Internet Caucus' State of the Net 2009 conference on Wednesday, there was also a panel discussion on the future of digital copyright that was anything but reassuring in terms of what to expect on the copyright front. Basically, it was a lot more of the same. The Congressional representative on the panel, Aaron Cooper, counsel to Sen. Patrick Leahy on the Senate Judiciary Committee, basically said that Leahy (who pushed through the highly problematic ProIP bill last year) is planning to introduce new laws concerning performance rights this year. This issue was seconded by Daryl Friedman, from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (and who's also on the board of SoundExchange). Friedman also later talked up the importance of unifying the various collections agencies into a "super agency." Funny that the guy from SoundExchange (who likely would be that agency, and which has a problem historically with actually paying money out) would suggest that...

The real problem, though, is that the entire framework for the whole debate remains the same. It's set up as this big adversarial situation, where content creators go on and on about the need to "protect" their "assets" and the importance of making sure that content creators are compensated. Of course, the problem is that content creators think those two things go together: i.e., you have to "protect" the content to get compensated. As we've seen over and over again, nothing is further from the truth. But it's this adversarial view that leads to troubling policy implications. It got so ridiculous that Alec French, from NBC Universal (and occasional Techdirt commenter), started comparing copyright issues to questions of who pulls the trigger in a murder. Specifically, he was talking about Cablevision remote DVR case, using the analogy that Cablevision set up the gun with a string attached to the trigger and a door -- and if someone opens the door (pushes a button on a remote) and the gun goes off and kills someone, Cablevision should be liable (just as the person who set up the gun would be liable). Of course, there's a huge glaring hole in this analogy. Recording a video for personal time shifting purposes is perfectly legal -- unlike murder.

But just the fact that the conversation is at that level shows what a huge hill there is to climb to have this policy debate actually get somewhere useful. The real problem (which the entertainment industry and, sadly, most of our elected officials refuse to entertain) is that copyright is fundamentally broken. It's a system that was designed for an entirely different purpose, and as each new technology innovation has come around, we've applied a weak duct-tape patch to copyright law to try to deal with that unique scenario. And, we keep patching the law here and there, and with each new innovation, copyright law doesn't quite work right. This was a point raised by Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge on the panel -- and she's exactly right. But, folks like Alec French dismissed the whole concept with a wave of the hand to talk about stuff that "actually might happen" in Congress. I have no doubt that French is correct that Congress won't take up the real issues, but that's a big problem.

So, in the end, there's probably not much to look forward to when it comes to copyright reform. There are very few Congressional reps who actually understand the issues, and there's little likelihood of them gaining much more interest. Instead, they're going to continue with their superficial understanding of the issue, and rely on representatives of the entertainment industry to tell them what they need. And, so we get more unnecessary compulsory licenses, stricter (more damaging) copyright controls and a bigger mess to deal with.

19 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Congress Slams Kevin Martin For Abuse Of Power

from the good-thing-they-waited-until-he-was-done dept

FCC boss Kevin Martin is nearing the end of his tenure at the FCC, looking ready to jump into a lucrative industry job or (some have speculated) explore the possibility of running for elected office. We've been among his many critics over the year -- specifically for his rather blatant efforts to side with the telcos, even when his views are exactly the opposite for telcos when compared to cable companies. The worst, however, may have been his awkward attempt to not just bury an analysis that showed that a la carte cable would be more expensive -- but to come out with a totally different report claiming the opposite.

Congress has now released a report slamming Martin for widespread abuses of power during his chairmanship, noting his efforts to force the FCC to bury the original report and publish the new report. He ordered the group to rewrite the report with the opposite findings and demoted the guy who wrote the original report. The Congressional report also noted that Martin had failed to properly oversee various telco slushfunds. You know all those extra "fees" the telcos charge? Basically it all goes into a big fund controlled by the telcos (not the gov't) with almost no oversight. The Congressional report specifically dings Martin for his oversight (or lack thereof) of the Telecommunications Relay Service Fund. Apparently, Martin ignored plenty of evidence that the telcos were overcharging, and let them just keep collecting. And, on top of that the FCC did little to actually audit the program.

It's also worth noting that Congress decided to release the report without holding hearings, noting: "due to the climate of fear that pervades the FCC...we found that key witnesses were unwilling to testify or even to have their names become known." Good thing they got that figured out just about a month before he's leaving office...

15 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Congress Critters Invest In Big Companies; News At Eleven

from the not-much-to-glean dept

Red Herring is reporting on the question of where our elected officials invest their own money, noting that an awful lot of it has gone into tech companies. For example, the second, third and fourth most invested in company among Congressional members are Cisco, Microsoft, and Intel, following on GE, which had the largest number of lawmaker investors (88). Of course, the number of investors doesn't necessarily say how much is invested, as Apple leads on that list, with Congressional members having put somewhere between $6.4 million and $31 million into Apple. Elected officials only need to give a range for their investments, hence the large spread. Of course, all of the info in the article isn't really all that enlightening, as the companies that these folks are invested in are basically the same as you would find on a list of the biggest companies in the US. So, basically, our Congress critters invest in big companies, many of which are in the tech industry. That's not particularly surprising.

8 Comments | Leave a Comment..

President Signs ProIP Bill Into Law; White House Gets Copyright Czar

from the don't-you-feel-safer? dept

Apparently, having our elected politicians completely lie to the President, combined with various business groups using totally made up numbers about the so-called "costs" of piracy was enough to convince President Bush to sign the ProIP bill into law, and accept the addition of a "Copyright Czar" position to the White House. It also strengthened copyright laws, yet again, despite little evidence they needed any strengthening. This law is nothing more than a weak attempt to prop up some struggling businesses who made the mistake of clinging to an obsolete business model far too long. All it will actually serve to do is to limit more creative forms of expression and much more innovative business models from being allowed to thrive.

31 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Congress Too Busy Gambling With Your Money To Let You Gamble With It Yourself

from the politics-as-usual dept

We had noted recently that Congress appeared to be moving forward with a bill that would actually re-legalize playing online poker. However, reports coming out now suggest that with Congress so busy passing pork-filled bailout bills, the online poker bill has been shifted to the backburner and will probably have to wait until next year. So, you know, if you were planning to survive this economic tough time by making it up playing online poker, you may want to consider moving to, say, Antigua.

15 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Bailout Bill Stuffed With Pork Apparently More Palatable

from the is-that-pork-or-spoonful-of-sugar dept

In my post about the financial crisis earlier this week, I explained the rationales both for and against the so-called "bailout bill." With some of the important indicators getting seriously scary, it was becoming increasingly important that something be done to keep money flowing, but this bill isn't it. Who would have thought that after the House rejected the bill earlier this week, that they would come back and approve something much worse. Rather than address the fundamental problems of the bill (and, well, the economy), what Congress did was stuff the bill full of pork, adding in every little personal favor to local industries they could dig up. Basically, all of the politicians added in little "gifts" to local industries, as a way of calming public dissent against the bill. And, of course, apparently that was all it took to get the House to approve the bill. Now they can go back home and say that they fought to "protect" their local constituents in the bill, when all they really did was put some pork in to bribe them.

While there's still a chance that this plan works out -- and, at this point, it's entirely based on who will control the fund -- the bill has done little, if anything to actually address the real issues that created this economic mess, and uses a sledge hammer where a scalpel would have made more sense. If it ends up succeeding, it will be in spite of the bill, rather than because of it.

41 Comments | Leave a Comment..