Senate Vote on the Spending Bill Stalled until Monday

Today, the U.S. Senate was supposed to vote on the funding bill which is supposed to carry the government for the next year. The vote has been extended until Monday. What is the reason for the delay? Most everyone assumes that the votes are there, and the Senate will pass the bill so that the legislation can go to the President's desk for signing. The President has already stated that he is in favor of the existing legislation that has just passed in the House, so I fully expect him to sign off on the bill.

   Still, Senators such as Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren, and others in the tea party such as Michelle Bachmann, and Ted Cruz, are in the record for opposing the bill The spending bill, now also calls for the rolling back of the Dodd-Frank bill, which now is being called a very bad bill by very concerned Democratic and Republican Senators.

   There are a number of reasons why the bill is considered tainted, and that outrage about it is rampant in the Senate. It is not known how the bill will fare when it is voted on by the Senate.


 Here are the three main reasons why the spending bill MUST fail....


First, there is a section of the bill, with a title  of "Prohibition against Federal government bailouts of swapped entities" which in other words means that the banks such as Citigroup, Morgan Chase and Bank of America will once again be able to make incredible risky investments. If they win, they make allot of money, but if they loose, the taxpayers of this country bail them out. For one thing, this is totally crazy and I still do not understand why the House passed such a bill. 

Second,  this bill which is a one trillion dollar bill, 60% of this discretionary money is slated to now go towards military spending. Never mind about the country's infrastructure, or that kids cannot afford to go to college, or child care is a total disaster. This is the same military that cannot even account or audit its own budget.

Third,  there is language in this bill which repeals a 40 year old Federal law protecting workers pensions. If this bill goes through, millions and millions of workers with 20, 30 and maybe 40 years on the job may find out that the pensions that they are expecting are now cut by 30, 40 and maybe up to 50 percent.

   So is this the way to protect working families? Is this bill a good bill?  It is appalling to me that the President of the United States is supporting this bill, but time will tell when it reaches his desk whether he will veto the bill or not. It is not definitely known that he can actually veto this bill at the moment, but if he gets a chance to see the bill on his desk, he may just change his mind.  Also, another possibility would be that if the Senate defeats the bill, they can in turn re-write the bill and send it back to the House. People are now discovering what is actually in the bill, and many people are showing their disgust. There is growing outrage that a growing majority of people do not like the bill, according to recent polls taken within the last 24 hours. But again, will Congress do the will of the people, or will the Congress just pass this bill for their own selfish interests, along with giving the mega-banks permission to again push out risky deals at the expense of the American taxpayer. This is what the President gets for bailing out the banks in the first place. . If the President could have only known that they would try it again since the last disaster, would he have bailed out the banks originally? I hardly think so. But at that time, since the House and the Senate were in Democratic hands, there would have been no possibility at that time for such reckless legislation to be passed.

   Whoever said that the Congress is in a lame duck session? Whoever they are, they must not be eating their own words. The Congress of the United States is more busy than it has been in the last 11 months. But there seems to be this sort of rush to do things, not taking in account the consequences of such destructive actions. This type of legislation by Senators in both houses is expected to grow even more at the turn of power in the Senate when the majority would now be held by Republicans,, as Congress will now become very active in the attempt to ramrod other disastrous bills past the President. Hopefully, you will see President Obama take out his veto pen and use it sparingly when needed. With all that is happening today, it makes you wonder why the people of this country continue to allow such lawmakers run the country. Whose side are the Senators on? They are on their own side, promoting their own selfish interests, but the voting public just does not seem to understand this, and these very same voters continue to elect Senators to Congress that could care less about their constituents.
   
   So while everyone waits for the next vote, I can't help but think what I plus others will now decide to do with their life savings, which consists of a 401K and a pension if the Senate passes the bill with all these riders attached that hurt the people and allow  banks to make incredible risky loans at the expense of the taxpayers if they screw up. . For myself, when the Senate does pass such a disastrous bill, I like many others may decide to immediately withdrawal the funds that I have in my accounts to protect the monies that I still have. The last time the banks almost went belly-up, I lost thousands of dollars in my 401K and it took many years for the money to return to my accounts. I am not willing to gamble my money again with the same possible outcome.