Someone once said, "When the only tool you have in your tool bag is a hammer, every job looks like a nail." And so it is with our legislators - their only tool is new law. It doesn't matter that typically there are already laws in place that have been violated, haven't been enforced, or have been ignored. From illegal immigration, to gun control, to environmental protection, to Wall St reform, when current law proves to be ineffective, obviously the solution is thousands of pages of additional legislation.
This proclivity to answer bad law with even more bad law isn't restricted to Congress. I recently heard a local Virginia State legislator discussing a law he sponsored requiring all State and local agencies to verify the immigration status of anyone before they can be hired. The gentleman (I wish I could recall his name) told WMAL talk show hosts Fred Grandy and Bryan Nehman that he had a feeling that the law was being ignored. He went on to say that when he looked into it, sure enough, not a single agency was following the law. Fortunately, he said, he was introducing a new bill that would order the agencies to follow the original law. I was astounded! Why didn't he also put them all on "double secret probation."
When Congress began ramming through legislation such as Healthcare reform and the Stimulus package which were becoming increasingly unpopular with the public, conservative Americans coined a clever turn of a phrase, "Don't just do something! Stand there!" It was meant to be witty which I believe it was but it also contained a not so subtle message - sometimes doing nothing is the right thing to do! Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for the country), the House wasn't in the "receive-mode" but they sure got the follow-on message November 2nd!
No comments:
Post a Comment