This is perhaps the silliest thing to come across the internets since the badger song.
Name the most important legislation enacted in the 30 years between 1950 and 1980.
Overwhelming isn’t it? Civil rights. Voting rights. Interstate highways. Medicare. Medicaid. The deregulation of the airlines, natural gas, trucking, rail and oil. The immigration act of 1965. Clean Air, Clean Water, and the Endangered Species Acts. Supplemental Security Income in 1974. I could fill the whole screen.
Now … the next 30 years.There’s the Reagan tax cuts of course. Deregulation of the savings & loans in 1982. The Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Welfare reform in 1995. Medicare Part D. What else?
David Frum says this is terrible because Congress used to be secret, but now that everybody can watch, Congress gets nothing done. He wants a return to secrecy.
Maybe, just maybe there is a different reason Congress has done little since the seventies. Maybe, just maybe it could be because conservatives largely took over in the 80′s through Republican controlled White Houses or Congresses and conservatives tend to think we don’t need sweeping legislation to solve all the ills of the American people.
Isn’t this the quintessential vanity piece of liberal drivel? Those elites back in the 50s to the 70s could get great things done because they didn’t have to interact with the people. But once they were forced to interact with those C-SPAN cameras, they couldn’t solve all the problems the American people never knew they had.
It’s nonsensical. But then it is David Frum.
Steve Maley
KnightsofMalta
Dan Spencer
Moe Lane
Dan McLaughlin
I had no idea Scott Brown is now considered a villain
WarEagle01 (Diary) Monday, March 1st at 8:52AM EST (link)“for voting against the filibuster of a jobs bill.” I thought it was more of a strategic vote to appease his largely Democrat constituency. But thank you David Frum. I need smart people like you to tell me what to think.
“A wise, doughy leg with rich tingly experiences will always reach better conclusions than will a more tanned, muscular leg that hasn’t felt those thrills.” –Chris Matthews’ Leg
“The alternative to the awful extremity of abortion is the indispensable joy of introducing this flawed world to someone who might make it better.”–John Hayward (AKA Dr. Zero)
Left unsaid is that much of the legislation that
throwback59 Monday, March 1st at 8:54AM EST (link)was passed between 1955 & 80 was detrimental to the US. I am specifically referring to the 1965 Immigration Reform Act, Voting Rights and the so-called Civil Rights Acts. Congress was aided & abetted by the Supreme Court which said that the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution pretty much allowed the House & Senate to do whatever they liked.
BTW: wasn’t Frumm considered a Conservative, once?
I thought Frum was a Canadian...
audax (Diary) Monday, March 1st at 12:15PM EST (link)…heh?
Audeamus pro audere est facere
Pelosi on health cramdown:
partyof1 Monday, March 1st at 9:13AM EST (link)“But,” Ms. Pelosi continued, “the American people need it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/us/politic/01talkshows.html
Yes she said that. Forget Massachusetts, forget all the polls, forget the August 09 town halls.
In Frum’s perfect world, Obamacare would be law already, because (Dem) Congress wants it, but the people don’t.
I guess it’s true that cockroaches prefer the darkness.
Frum is living under a rock
Scope (Diary) Monday, March 1st at 9:14AM EST (link)The entire Democrat healthcare bills were written in secret, behind closed doors, and, with no minority party input. Was that his early morning phone call talking point suggested by Emmanuel?
Actually...
Brad Smith (Diary) Monday, March 1st at 11:16PM EST (link)In the old days, you would have needed 67 votes to break a filibuster. While it is true that a filibuster was also harder to carry out in those day, it seems pretty clear that Republicans would filibuster the health care bill.
So really, we’d probably be better off under the old rules – the bill would be a dead letter.
Brad Smith
Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault Designated Professor of Law
Capital University Law School
Capital University website
Center for Competitive Politics website
They did less because they had done too much.
johnt Monday, March 1st at 9:36AM EST (link)There’s only so much garbage you can pile on the dump.
But the notion that Congress must be never endingly grinding out the sausage indicates a certain dangerous addiction.
“a man’s admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him”. Tocqueville
Yo, Dave! Miss the point much?
RedBeard Monday, March 1st at 10:43AM EST (link)Congress doing less is a great and wonderful thing.
But then, Dave, you would only know that had you ever actually read the Constitution.
Standard-bearer for grouchy curmudgeonry since, oh, 1975 or so.
Does Canada have a Constitution
audax (Diary) Monday, March 1st at 12:17PM EST (link)for the Canadian Frum to read?
Audeamus pro audere est facere
More importantly, does Canada define "conservative" differently than we do?
RedBeard Monday, March 1st at 1:43PM EST (link)For this guy to claim conservatism is about as honest as Hillary claiming to be a lifelong Yankees fan. Or as they say out here in the sticks, that dog won’t hunt.
Standard-bearer for grouchy curmudgeonry since, oh, 1975 or so.
Conservatives do have to legislate
Brad Smith (Diary) Monday, March 1st at 11:24PM EST (link)If you want to shrink government and get it out of our lives, you do have to pass legislation. Social Security won’t reform itself. Taxes won’t repeal themselves. It takes legislation to abolish a federal agency or change federal laws. If we succeed in blocking Obamacare, that doesn’t mean that Medicare will automatically be reformed, let alone shrunk.
You can take the nihilist view – the Saul Alinsky view, if you will – that if you just screw up government so much it can’t work, you will win. But I suspect that the people won’t stand for that, and that conservatism can only win if we return to legislating.
Brad Smith
Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault Designated Professor of Law
Capital University Law School
Capital University website
Center for Competitive Politics website
Agreed, of course, on the need to unravel the mess
RedBeard Tuesday, March 2nd at 7:36AM EST (link)But that is 180 degrees from Frum’s perspective of what Congress should be doing. He wants an activist Congress, and we want a constitutional one.
Standard-bearer for grouchy curmudgeonry since, oh, 1975 or so.
Problem is that Transparency
jpniner (Diary) Wednesday, March 3rd at 2:07PM EST (link)makes reforming all these things(or abolishing) next to impossible.
Frum has responded to this and other critics of this piece at his blog today
Problem is that Transparency
jpniner (Diary) Wednesday, March 3rd at 2:07PM EST (link)makes reforming all these things(or abolishing) next to impossible.
Frum has responded to this and other critics of this piece at his blog today