There is something badly broken.
The US Congress - House of Representatives - have just passed, by a good margin (269 - 161), a bill that would raise the debt ceiling.
That’s not the part that is ‘broken’ - although, that is up for debate.
However, this excerpt from the Wallstreet Journal article about the bill really struck me as odd:
As leaders on both sides worked to sell the package to their members, they disagreed over whether it allows for tax increases.
“I think the big win here for us and for the American people is the fact that there are no tax hikes in this package,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.).
Democrats disagreed.
“We’ve had our lawyers go over this very carefully,” Sen. Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) said on MSNBC. “It is really very clear that [new] revenue can be part of any solution that the special committee develops.”
While the agreement does suggest that the deficit-cutting committee could propose increasing taxes, it would face multiple barriers to doing so.
One is that the committee is using Congressional Budget Office projections that assume revenue will rise with the expiration of the Bush-era tax rates and current middle-class relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax. In effect, the panel would have to look for additional tax increases to achieve any deficit reduction, which could prove politically difficult.
So…let me get this straight. The lawyers (i.e. professionals paid to interpret laws) of the writers of this law, don’t even agree on the interpretation of this new law created by their clients - even before it is passed into law?
Uhh…am I missing something here? There has to be a better way to do this.
I am not so sure that having lawyers running a country, really is the best thing after all.
This is kinda ridiculous.
You can follow me on Twitter here.