I'm not saying it makes anything okay. The fact of the matter is that you and I are not legislators, though. I happen to be familiar with the Congressional Record (which was the Globe in antiquity) and the workings of Congress simply because of my chosen profession. It is hard to pull a lot of things together from the CR together, but in the long run, much of what they do directly impacts seemingly unrelated legislation later on. The "civics lesson" (sorry, I didn't mean for that to sound condescending at all) was intended to just give you an idea of why Congress might be interested in a possible trust in the BCS.JWEIII wrote:EXACTLY! Why does that make this OK?1987alum wrote:
I don't think he's saying that. I think he's saying that wasting time is SOP for Congress.
Just to give you some idea of the ammount of time legislators can spend on a single issue, there was a Special Senate Commission in 1864 headed by Sen. James Doolittle (R - Kansas) founded to investigate the state of Indian affairs in the American West. Doolittle and a handfull of other Senators felt that the most effective way for them to investigate such problems as Indian abuse and patronage in the Bureau of Indian Affairs (just to name a few) was to litterally head out West and investigate for themselves. What became known as the Doolittle Commission (this group of Senators) headed out west for nearly a year, broke into sub-commissions and investigated every region of the West, interviewing military officials, Indian Agents and Indians themselves. The entire time they were away from Washington, and when they returned they spent nearly two years compiling what would become known as the "Doolittle Report." This report is one of the most important documents in the history of 19th century Indian affairs, and although it was not well recieved at the time, it did have some tangible and lasting effects.
You can argue the merit of investigating Indian affairs vs. investigating the BCS, but I don't think that is wholly constructive. The simple fact of the matter is that, in order for legislators to effectively legislate at the national level, they must be informed about a plethora of issues, and sub-committees are the way that they do it. Reports from sub-committees which are made up of only a handful of legislators go to the entire legislative body to inform all Congressmen and/or Senators before they make a voting decision, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of sub-committee reports produced every year on topics ranging from the merits of a Circuit Court Judicial appointee, to the state of crawfish spawning in the Red River Basin, to the nation's preparedness for a terror attack. It is just the nature of Congress.
