[OutsiderFan]

Nonpartisan Concord Coalition encapsulates this 5600 page monstrosity into the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

https://www.concordcoalition.org/blog-po...9f345ee35e

This spending bill embodies everything wrong with the Congress. Where in the mother*cking hell are the hearings? The floor debate? Why not have a government spending bill, and a separate Covid Relief bill?  Why not have the House work in a bi-partisan fashion to get a bill passed, then have the Senate do one, and have a conference to reconcile the two? Not like they didn't have time.

Having a select number of House and Senate members negotiate with each other, instead of each house passing its own bill, is terrible. Not only does this not allow the Congress to work as designed, does anyone think House reps have the exact same interests as Senators? I'm guessing the House reps have much more interest in the interests of the cities and towns in their districts.

I don't know if booting McConnell out of power will help get us back to a functioning Congress, that has the Senate take up House-passed bills for debate, but we are going to weaken ourselves irreversibly if we keep on operating in this "here's a 5,500 page bill you've never seen before. We vote in two hours" bullshit.

[OutsiderFan]

Nonpartisan Concord Coalition encapsulates this 5600 page monstrosity into the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

https://www.concordcoalition.org/blog-po...9f345ee35e

This spending bill embodies everything wrong with the Congress. Where in the mother*cking hell are the hearings? The floor debate? Why not have a government spending bill, and a separate Covid Relief bill?  Why not have the House work in a bi-partisan fashion to get a bill passed, then have the Senate do one, and have a conference to reconcile the two? Not like they didn't have time.

Having a select number of House and Senate members negotiate with each other, instead of each house passing its own bill, is terrible. Not only does this not allow the Congress to work as designed, does anyone think House reps have the exact same interests as Senators? I'm guessing the House reps have much more interest in the interests of the cities and towns in their districts.

I don't know if booting McConnell out of power will help get us back to a functioning Congress, that has the Senate take up House-passed bills for debate, but we are going to weaken ourselves irreversibly if we keep on operating in this "here's a 5,500 page bill you've never seen before. We vote in two hours" bullshit.