Honest Question: "Who do you think wrote the sequester bill?"

[Dante]

Honest Question: "Who do you think wrote the sequester bill?"

Bills are written by Congress? I know others can help draft a bill, but doesn't the Congress have to write the final version? Who gets credit?

Oh, did you know this is a legal thing, a law, a Congressional mandate?

 

[Dante]

Budget Control Act of 2011 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s365enr/pdf/BILLS-112s365enr.pdf

 

[Dante]

Who writes our law? : GovTrack.us Blog

Today’s question comes from Gwen who asks:

Who actually writes the bills that the members of congress sponsor and vote for?

This is no simple question and the answer involves many different sorts of people. To get the facts straight, I turned to an ex-staffer, Marci Harris, who just recently worked on the health care legislation in Rep. Pete Stark’s office and had the following to say. (If you want the short answer, there’s a summary at the end.)

...

Summary

So here’s a summary of what Marci wrote: If you want to know who actually puts pen to paper, it’s nonpartisan staff lawyers who work for Congress who know the exiting law they are affecting inside out. They do that under the direction of office staff for Members of Congress and congressional committees, who vet the bill with outside experts and advocates. Sometimes those advocates (i.e. lobbyists) propose changes in the form of legislative language. But did they write the bill? Probably not.

So if the President did not write the bill, who did?

 

[alan1]

Congress.
You know, those 90% that got re-elected after kicking the can down the road last time.

 

[Dante]

Congress.
You know, those 90% that got re-elected after kicking the can down the road last time.

Who voted them in?

We did!

 

[alan1]

Congress.
You know, those 90% that got re-elected after kicking the can down the road last time.

Who voted them in?

We did!

There is not a single sitting politician in Washington that I voted for.
After their abject failures for the last 12+ years, none of them have earned my vote.

 

[Dante]

Congress.
You know, those 90% that got re-elected after kicking the can down the road last time.

Who voted them in?

We did!

There is not a single sitting politician in Washington that I voted for.
After their abject failures for the last 12+ years, none of them have earned my vote.

Too bad but we have choices. They are not always great choices but that is the nature of a democratic system

 

[Politico]

Who cares. Just get it on already.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Who cares. Just get it on already.

Austerity is stupid.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

Some high school intern on the staff of a low level Member of the House cobbled it together.

Then it got edited and revised.

When it no longer made any damn sense, the House Speaker asked Obama if it was what the Obama team had in mind.

They then laughed and agreed to it.

Or perhaps that's not the way it all went down.

 

[Dante]

boy, do facts really suck when a life is reduced to wingnut messaging

 

[IlarMeilyr]

boy, do facts really suck when a life is reduced to wingnut messaging

I am sorry that your life sucks for you, wingnut.

Maybe you should try to post something intelligent to offset your wingnut suckiness.

 

[Dante]

boy, do facts really suck when a life is reduced to wingnut messaging

I am sorry that your life sucks for you, wingnut.

Maybe you should try to post something intelligent to offset your wingnut suckiness.

A new play thing? Why does gawd favor Dante so much? Life truly is unfair for the rest of USMB

 

[Ame®icano]

Honest Question: "Who do you think wrote the sequester bill?"

Bills are written by Congress? I know others can help draft a bill, but doesn't the Congress have to write the final version? Who gets credit?

Oh, did you know this is a legal thing, a law, a Congressional mandate?

Congress wrote the bill.

As a part of agreement with the WH over debt ceiling increase.
Back in April 2011, Obama accused Congress of holding America hostage. Congress told him, if you want us to increase debt ceiling, you need to get serious about spending cuts.
So, to show how serious he is about it, he offered pledge to cut spending. House rejected his pledge so Obama proposed sequester, Congress accepted and as part of agreement they wrote the bill.

Then came this: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMZC-Zifx90]President Obama: I will veto any effort to get rid of the sequester cuts - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Annie]

The sequester bill was the brainchild of the administration, as reported by Woodward. That it was written by Congressional staffers doesn't get the administration off the hook, which was the point of Woodward's editorial piece. Now the administration and minions are attacking him as senile and such? Big overplay of hand, and the price is becoming apparent.

 

[peach174]

It was a bill written in the house.

The bill was the final chance in a series of proposals to resolve the 2011 United States debt-ceiling crisis, which featured bitter divisions between the parties and also pronounced splits within them. Earlier ideas included the Obama-Boehner $4 trillion "Grand Bargain", the House Republican Cut, Cap and Balance Act, and the McConnell-Reid "Plan B" fallback. All eventually failed to gain enough general political or specific Congressional support to move into law, as the midnight August 2, 2011, deadline for an unprecedented U.S. sovereign default drew nearer and nearer.

Ultimately, the solution came from White House National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling, who, on July 12, 2011, proposed a compulsory trigger that would go into effect if another agreement was not made on tax increases and/or budget cuts equal to or greater than the the debt ceiling increase by a future date.The intent was to secure the commitment of both sides to future negotiation by means of an enforcement mechanism that would be unpalatable to Republicans and Democrats alike. President Obama agreed to the plan. House Speaker John Boehner expressed reservations, but also agreed.

On July 26, 2011, White House Budget Director Jack Lew and White House Legislative Affairs Director Rob Nabors met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to discuss the plan. Reid, like Boehner several days before, was initially opposed to the idea, but was eventually convinced to go along with it, with the understanding that the sequester was intended as an enforcement tool rather than a true budget proposal.

On the evening of July 31, 2011, Obama announced that the leaders of both parties in both chambers had reached an agreement that would reduce the deficit and avoid default.The same day, Speaker of the House John Boehner's office outlined the agreement for House Republicans. One key element in the deal being reached and the logjam being broken earlier that afternoon was U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's ability to negotiate with his 25-year Senate colleague, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Biden had spent the most time bargaining with Congress on the debt question of anyone in the administration, and McConnell had viewed him as the one most trustworthy.

So the Sequester came from Gene Sperling Director the National Economic Council.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Honest Question: "Who do you think wrote the sequester bill?"

Bills are written by Congress? I know others can help draft a bill, but doesn't the Congress have to write the final version? Who gets credit?

Oh, did you know this is a legal thing, a law, a Congressional mandate?

It doesn't matter who wrote it it matters who signs it into law.

 

[Polk]

The sequester bill was the brainchild of the administration, as reported by Woodward. That it was written by Congressional staffers doesn't get the administration off the hook, which was the point of Woodward's editorial piece. Now the administration and minions are attacking him as senile and such? Big overplay of hand, and the price is becoming apparent.

No, the point of Woodward's piece was to claim that the White House was going back on a previously agreed upon deal, even though neither side intended sequestration to be anything other than a placeholder.

 

[Polk]

It was a bill written in the house.

The bill was the final chance in a series of proposals to resolve the 2011 United States debt-ceiling crisis, which featured bitter divisions between the parties and also pronounced splits within them. Earlier ideas included the Obama-Boehner $4 trillion "Grand Bargain", the House Republican Cut, Cap and Balance Act, and the McConnell-Reid "Plan B" fallback. All eventually failed to gain enough general political or specific Congressional support to move into law, as the midnight August 2, 2011, deadline for an unprecedented U.S. sovereign default drew nearer and nearer.

Ultimately, the solution came from White House National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling, who, on July 12, 2011, proposed a compulsory trigger that would go into effect if another agreement was not made on tax increases and/or budget cuts equal to or greater than the the debt ceiling increase by a future date.The intent was to secure the commitment of both sides to future negotiation by means of an enforcement mechanism that would be unpalatable to Republicans and Democrats alike. President Obama agreed to the plan. House Speaker John Boehner expressed reservations, but also agreed.

On July 26, 2011, White House Budget Director Jack Lew and White House Legislative Affairs Director Rob Nabors met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to discuss the plan. Reid, like Boehner several days before, was initially opposed to the idea, but was eventually convinced to go along with it, with the understanding that the sequester was intended as an enforcement tool rather than a true budget proposal.

On the evening of July 31, 2011, Obama announced that the leaders of both parties in both chambers had reached an agreement that would reduce the deficit and avoid default.The same day, Speaker of the House John Boehner's office outlined the agreement for House Republicans. One key element in the deal being reached and the logjam being broken earlier that afternoon was U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's ability to negotiate with his 25-year Senate colleague, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Biden had spent the most time bargaining with Congress on the debt question of anyone in the administration, and McConnell had viewed him as the one most trustworthy.

So the Sequester came from Gene Sperling Director the National Economic Council.

This has to be one of the most pointless arguments I've ever heard. Why do we care so much about the particular mechanism used for the cuts. If a hostage was tied to a chair and asked by the hostage taker if they'd prefer to be killed with a gun or with a knife, we wouldn't say the hostage was the one in charge because he chose to be shot instead of stabbed.

 

[Wry Catcher]

The sequester bill was the brainchild of the administration, as reported by Woodward. That it was written by Congressional staffers doesn't get the administration off the hook, which was the point of Woodward's editorial piece. Now the administration and minions are attacking him as senile and such? Big overplay of hand, and the price is becoming apparent.

Dante provided proof, you provide speculation. Obama signed the bill, the bill was written by and voted on by members of committees in both houses and finally voted on by both houses before it went to the President for his signature.

Whose idea it was isn't known and doesn't matter.

Jeez.