Ok... this is a little frightening....


Anger at tax returns measure

Senate leaders vow author will be held accountable
Sunday, November 21, 2004 Posted: 7:27 PM EST (0027 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday that "accountability will be carried out" against whoever slipped a provision into an omnibus spending bill that would have allowed two committee chairmen to view the tax returns of any American.

The language was caught and removed in the Senate on Saturday, but the House will have to approve the fix before the spending bill can be sent to the White House for President Bush's signature.

"I have no earthly idea how it got in there," Frist said on CBS's "Face The Nation." "Nobody is going to defend this."

Sen. John McCain said Sunday that the episode points up the problems created when Congress passes gigantic spending bills at the end of a session, before anyone has time to read them.

"If there is ever a graphic example of the broken system that we now have, that certainly has to be it," the Arizona Republican said on NBC's "Meet The Press." "How many other provisions didn't we find in that 1,000-page bill?"

Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York called Sunday for a "full and complete" investigation into how the language got into the bill, followed by "appropriate punishment" for those responsible.

"This harkens back to the days of [FBI Director] J. Edgar Hoover, when some unknown person could go and snoop on you," he said on CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer."

Saturday, rushing to adjourn for the year, the House passed the $338 billion omnibus spending bill, which was necessary to keep government operations funded after Congress ran out of time to pass nine regular appropriations bills. The bill ran to more than 1,000 pages. (Full story)

Saturday had been scheduled as the final day of a lame-duck session for the 108th Congress. On Sunday, top Democrats and Republicans expressed frustration over the House's failure to pass a broad intelligence reorganization bill. A vote in December is still possible, as Congress has not gone into recess. (Full story)

After the House passed the spending bill, Democratic Senate staffers discovered that it contained a provision allowing the chairmen of the House and Senate appropriations committees, or their agents, to examine the tax returns of any American.

The two lawmakers who would have gained that power -- Sen. Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, and Rep. Bill Young, a Florida Republican -- both said they wouldn't use it, and the Senate approved a resolution deleting the language.

Frist and outgoing Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, a Democrat from South Dakota, agreed to hold the bill until the House could pass a similar fix, which could not happen before Wednesday.

Some Democrats implied that the measure was inserted for political gain.

"Does anyone believe that some staffer without permission thought up a scheme by which a chairman's 'agent' could have access to every IRS facility everywhere in this nation and every single IRS filing of every citizen of this nation?" said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat.

"I mean, you know, we weren't born yesterday."

Frist said he did not know who was responsible for inserting the language, "but, obviously, somebody is going to know, and accountability will be carried out."

The Senate leader also noted that passing appropriations together into one omnibus bill was "not unusual," and that the appropriations subcommittees have been working on it for nine months.

"This thing wasn't written over the last three or four days," he told CBS, though he conceded that the budget process needed to be changed.

"We're going to work on that in the next Congress," he said.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/ ... index.html

I think the whole idea of so-called "riders" on bills should be outlawed. A bill should only pertain to the issue for which it was created. Period.

They can view mine. It might make them laugh.

this is quite ridiculous....

According to McCain, it's doubtful this will become law.

Hopefully he's right.

I agree.

Each individual rider should be voted on and not just attached to a bill that would probably get passed.

That is a good idea but would slow the process a bit.

And gee, that would sure be a shame to make Senators have to stick around and vote on stuff!



But yeah, I would go with that!

Slow but they might have a better idea on what they are voting on. And the American people might have a better clue about all those riders and who actually is attaching them.

EXACTLY!

I am starting to lean towards liking Big Brother watching. I really have nothing to hide and I am honest. I am getting so sick of greedy and dishonest people who don't get caught. I'd like to see more people getting caught cheating on thier taxes or on filling out federal aid applications or whatever else Big Brother can catch you doing that isn't fair to honest people.

But I still like my privacy and not having my name show up in a database somewhere that someone dishonest might get thier hands on.

And thats really the only problem. There are plenty of crooked people in those positions.

I probably would be one of them!

That's too bad. I used to like you Tsunami. I guess you get 3 strikes though. I hate dishonest people!!!

I mean

Spk still rules.

I'd rather people get away with shit, and I get keep my liberty. Just personally. People are going to be rorting stuff all the time regardless.

No shit. While this whole idea is stupid, why do I care? Christ, it's not like they can't get that info already anyways. For all I know they've got a satellite beamed in on me right now and are laughing at my shirt and bad haircut.

but then they couldn't twist things come election time....say there's a bill to give funding to schools but there's an unrelated rider giving money to somethng wasteful. If a poltiican votes agaisnt it because of that rider then it will become "s/he voted against funding education!!!!" election time.

Right. I think the rider should be separate from the bill. It shouldn't even be called a rider it should actually be another bill or something. Then they are really only voting on one thing. So this would have helped Kerry because he was for funding troops but voted against it when most of the money wasn't going to the troops.

Right. I think the rider should be separate from the bill. It shouldn't even be called a rider it should actually be another bill or something. Then they are really only voting on one thing. So this would have helped Kerry because he was for funding troops but voted against it when most of the money wasn't going to the troops.

"spk5512, you're my heeero"

Having the liberty to do as you please with no constraints (or fear of prosecution and punishment) will only lead to mayhem, lest we forget Springfield's "Do What You Feel" festival.

"If elected mayor, my first order will be to kill the lot of you, and burn your houses to the ground! I know it's on!"

Laura can correct me if I'm wrong, but I interpreted her post more along the lines of "I'd rather let 100 guilty men go free than to send 1 innocent man to jail".