Can Congress Police Itself

The House Ethics Committee hasn't, despite the rash of scandals plagueing Republican Washington, hasn't opened an investigation in over a year. The panel met Tuesday with an expected result, partisan deadlock. No investigations of Delay, rather useless now that he's fallen on his sword, nor of Bob Ney nor of William Jefferson. No action at all. This is the agency that claims to be able to police itself. It can't even rise above partisanship in the most blatant of cases. Imagine one where there's doubt. No wonder 59% of us out here in the real world believe Congress incapable of policing itself. Cynthia McKinney thinking she can rush the security station at the Capitol without proper ID, then accuse the police officer detaining her of racism, sexism, inappropriate touching and, for all I know, bad breath is an indicator of Congressional ethics: I'm in a favored class, the rules that apply to you don't apply to me.

In yet another proof of how out of touch Bush is, he's touting health care savings accounts again. Unaware that personal income in inflation-adjusted dollars has fallen every year of his Presidency, he's wanting us to take more out of our check so we can self-insure. First, George, we have health care savings accounts now, they just have to be used within a given year. In other words, you have a year to use them or you lose the money. It's gone. Vanished. If you didn't plan your illnesses properly, you lose money on health care savings accounts. Here's the kicker: With pensions now a joke used to recruit but not paid or paid out at pennies on the dollar due to Corporate defaults, with few or no protections at work necessitating a huge emergency reserve fund, with energy prices through the roof and with conventional insurance as expensive as it is, who has the money to build a war chest against illness? Of course, if you have the money to spare (you're a Bush favored constituent, that is, wealthy) the accounts provide yet another tax dodge. For the rest of us, it's another burden we can ill afford, particularly after five years of Bushinomics (rob from the poor to give to the rich).