What's Wrong With America, Part ... Whatever

The New York Times this morning has a behind-the-scenes look at the influences that went into the making--or maybe not--of the budget bill that the Congress has tentatively agreed to. It is a patchy, short-term budget at best and not likely to be of any significance after a few months, but it had all the effort behind it of, say, the Civil Rights Bill of 1964. Many consider that bill to be the last bill of major significance passed by Congress until the recent health care bill, which is being seriously threatened.

The Times reports the following damning evidence that our government is not just broken, it has been taken from us by interests that aren't always best interests: "But in the end, a handful of relatively small-bore line items affecting particular industries attracted some of the most aggressive lobbying behind the scenes, as business interests, health care providers and others fought to hold on to, or kill, proposals that affected their bottom line."

Here's the link. 

(Graphic: Adventure Journal.)