No Answer

 

I got a call a few days ago from “NRA.” That's what it said on my telephone. I assumed it was the National Rifle Association and the woman at the other end confirmed that. I told her I didn't have a rifle and I hung up. It wasn't my intent to be impolite, but I have no interest in the NRA or in its goals.

The call, however, exemplifies one of the many problems in our “system.” I've listed my telephone on the “Don't Call List,” but now I know that this list is only for telemarketers. Politicians, charities, organizations that claim to have done business with me, and others, are excluded. Since the NRA is a lobbying organization rather than a charity, and I've never done business with it, I can only assume it is one of the other organizations not covered by the regulation. Somewhere buried in the act there must be an exemption for any individual or organization who donates to a Congressman's treasure chest.

That's the way it is with too many of our laws. A bill is a piñata, a Trojan Horse with a fancy name that has been carefully crafted to contain benefits of some kind for one or more special interests while appearing to the voters as a public service designed to protect them. Our new health care bill was well over two thousand pages, and required tens of thousands of pages of additional regulations. It's summarized as providing health care for all. That's a short summary for a bill that's so long, and it's hard to imagine that there isn't something else inside. But, in all likelihood, no one but those who stuffed the horse with goodies has ever examined the contents in detail.ⁱ As they say, “the Devil is in the details.” So there's a lot of room there for Scratch and his many faithful servants. And for the lobbyists as well (assuming they're not already there among his “faithful servants”). A recent edition of my morning paper told of the new finance overhaul bill which, in addition to regulating financial firms, is said to be aimed at job creation. The bill is over twenty-three hundred pages long, so just cutting down the trees, making the paper, typing it out, and distributing the bill certainly required many new jobs,ⁱⁱ even if no one reads the small print. Similarly there are likely to be many new agencies and bureaus (and the jobs that go with them) created by the bill. And, of course, there are probably significant benefits for the organizations that support the bill's writers.

There are also numerous new regulations in it as there are with the health-care bill, however their enforcement should not be assumed. Notwithstanding the Don't Call List, I've still been getting many appeals from telemarketers, but when I complained to my State Attorney General and the FTC, I was told that there wasn't much they could do about it.ⁱⁱⁱ I should just hang up on the callers. I vaguely recall “Just say 'no'” from a previous administration but I didn't know it still existed. Enforcement appears to be a low priority. Once the publicity value of a bill is gone, and once the benefits have been distributed to the donors, there is no need to go further. The nominal justification for the bill is of no concern to those who have voted for it, and the public will be mollified by the next bill, which will be announced to the press this afternoon. Report at eleven.

But we don't require new bills. Especially those whose primary purposes are to win benefits for members of Congress and extend special privileges to their contributors. We need proper enforcement of the ones we already have.

I don't need any more calls from the NRA.

Next episode: “Giving and Receiving” – Charity or “charity”?

i       Not even other legislators who vote for it. Especially if you promise to vote for their bills.

ii      The same is true, of course, of the lengthy health-care bill.

iii     That's funny. The IRS never has problems with its job.