The Employment Situation in February: Needed: Much More Aid to the States
Christy Romer:
Statement on the Employment Situation in February: [A]n unemployment rate of 9.7 percent is unacceptably high and we need to achieve robust employment growth in order to recover from the terrible job losses that began over two years ago. That is why it is essential that Congress pass additional responsible measures to promote job creation. It is also vital that we continue to support those struggling with unemployment...
Such as? What responsible measures?
The biggest and easiest would be another $300 billion in aid to states for the remainder of fiscal 2010 and 2011 to keep state and local services from suffering additional cuts and to shave perhaps 1.5 percentage points off the unemployment rate. Senators, however, are opposed to it: if they give money to governors, governors use them to cut ribbons and then run against senators to try to take their jbos.
It would, however, be the right thing to do.
The Senate is currently mammothly disfunctional. And it is disfunctional in the long term as well--its gerrymandered and unrepresentative nature stores up really big trouble for the future.
We cannot--at least not in a single amendment (whether we could do so in a succession of amendments is for the Supreme Court to decide)--eliminate or reform the Senate. We can, however, use a single amendment to spay it:
Amendment XXVIII: Art. I §7 is hereby revised to read:
Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives shall be presented to the Senate, which shall either concur or amend and return the bill to the House of Representatives. Should the Senate concur or should the House of Representatives repass its original bill a second time, the bill shall be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections, to the House of Representatives, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of the House of Representatives shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall become a Law. In all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.
