Grading Congress

by Douglas Smyth
(Hudson Valley, NY)

I meant to include something about why I gave Congress the +. It did pass bill after bill in the House in which a withdrawal timetable from Iraq was required. Congress also did pass ethics reforms, the first increase in CAFE gas mileage standards in many years, and succeeded in a quick fix of AMT so that the middle class won't get socked by absurdly higher tax bills. It also passed an increase in the minimum wage, the first since the early 1990's. It was not able to do this, however, by paying for it according to its pay-go rules, because Republicans blocked the tax increases on the oil companies and hedge funds that would have done so.

Congress, to its credit, has also NOT passed a bill to permanently loosen eavesdropping rules, or give the telecoms immunity for previous law-breaking, immunity that would allow the government to avoid legal proceedings showing how much it broke the law.

Also, the reason for the grade was that I taught college (economics and political science) for 27 years, and so letter grades are a natural reflex of mine--although grading was the part of teaching that I hated--that and committee work.

I did not include all of the above because of space constraints on my blog.