I was listening to Rush (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) about how a law passed in two days. Did all of the congressmen read the law? I doubt it. The point is, there are laws that are pass so quickly that if they happen to have something in it that's odd or obscure (like something that gets someone money or exempt from taxes) then who is going to check it? For the most part, the law makers have reelection every 5 years or so.

And that is where my plan comes in.

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Flight attendant: Chicken or fish?

Jay Sherman: I'll have the chicken.

Flight attendant: No, I mean what is it, chicken or fish? (shows Jay a chicken-fish thing).

50 or even 20 years is too long. 8 might be OK. We need the current lawmakers to be accountable for the current laws. For example, I spoke to my congressman, Frank Lucas (R-OK) at a town hall meeting and told him about how the Federal Reserve system is a scam which mathematically must indebt us to the central banks. He agreed with my assessment but copped out with the response "Well, they decided that long ago, it's a done deal now." It would be much more effective to be able to say, "Why did YOU vote for the law?" I mean, who wants to wait 50 years to hear, "Well... Sorry. But it wasn't our personal fault for the bad law, so don't come whining to us"? More than anything, the system needs accountability. Waiting until the next generation takes over, so the government can say "but we're good now" is unacceptable.

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War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.

It's a post 9/11 world.

Every law is up and available for change at any point. The fact that this congressman can say what's done is done is really depressing. If a law is bad, it's congress's job to change it and they should be held accountable for it even if it was enacted 100 years ago.

It seems to me what really needs to happen is we need to figure out why our congressmen feel so tied down agaisnt reviewing and changing laws from the past. Your idea might help treat the symptoms, but I think there is obviously a much deeper problem where our congress no longer feels they have the power to make changes to the laws as they feel best for the country. That's their turf, why can't they change it? Why is our legislature no longer accountable to the people? Who has taken away the legislative authority from our legislature?

Solve that and I think you'll solve the real problem.

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True knowledge exists in being aware of what you don't know.

The Federal Reserve isn't part of the government. They technically break the anti-trust laws. The whole thing is a system. How it works is that if the stock market goes up, banks make tons of money, so they obviously want it to go up. If it goes down, it loses tons of money, therefore they they don't want it to go down. So they have incentive to keep the stock market up, and that keeps people employed - that's the positive argument for a central bank. Is the government in the Central Bank's debt? Yes, but the central bank has no army, it has no power, paper is worthless. What's more, they don't control the printing of money, therefore they have even less power than people think. They can "create" money by loaning it out (that money isn't paper money). Destroying the central bank will not solve the debt. It will cause massive panic in the investing world and everyone will take their money out - the stock market will crash. When that happens nobody will have cashflow, and we'll be in something worse than the great depression. When you weigh the pros and cons of a central bank system, the pros defeat the cons so long as it's already in place - which it is. Did it or should it have needed to be there, no.

The easy answer is that it's hard. Take Hillary Clinton for example. She's trying to change the whole healthcare system, she's written a bill that's 1000 plus pages and it was first presented 15 years ago and it's still not passed. And that's the way it's supposed to be. Because if it wasn't that way, then bills would go by so fast that congress wouldn't take their time in determining whether or not to vote for it. The system is intentionally conservative in order to ensure that the majority of people (in congress at least) get what they want.

It's people that stood in the way of the bill, not the system itself, that makes change difficult. congress as a whole has the power to make some rapid changes. Nothing in the system says it has to take 15 years at least. If congress wants to change something, they can. The only reason something does not change is either because congress doesn't want to, or because there is some external force making it difficult.

If, in his example, he said it could not change because the other congressmen don't agree, that wold make sence to me. But that's not what he said. He said it was a decision made in the past, and what's done is done. It shouldnt take any more effort to vote a bad law out than it was to vote it in.

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True knowledge exists in being aware of what you don't know.

Congress can make changes rapidly, but the system tried to deter that. Think about it. In order for a bill to become a law it must past through two houses of congress and the president/governor, and in order for it to do that it must get by the "people that stand in the way of the bill," other congress members. It is difficult to make a bill into a law, and that's a good thing.

This thread isn't really about the process of changing a bill though, it's about trimming government.
I can tell you right now that there are congressmen (many congressmen) who would oppose the idea.

And that's the system working as it should. The question here is if there is something outside of this that is also working against this system.
I make no dispute that "this idea", and by that I think you mean the federal reserve, is a good or bad idea. But again, this congressmen didn't say that there are congressmen (many congressmen) who would oppose the idea. He said what's done is done.

And the ability to trim a bad law is relevant ... it's one of the very reason's he brought this up. Accountability.

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True knowledge exists in being aware of what you don't know.

Nope.

I do mean the federal reserves, and the congressman was probably trying to avoid him without being rude. He's a politician. He's not going to disagree with anyone, but he knows (better than this guy) that the idea of taking down the federal reserve now is stupid.
Actually, it's the point of the thread... please try to understand what I write. I said, this thread is about trimming government, not changing the way the system creates bills. I was pointing out we're off topic, and we're beginning to drift into a stupid one at that. Everyone should know how laws are made. I realize you don't understand how difficult it really is to make a law and I was pointing out that out.