Congress wastes a lot of time on useless posturing, but sometimes they actually pursue policies that seem designed to harm American citizens. Most recently, the Senate just passed a bill 94-2 declaring that no new US attorneys will be approved for an indefinite period of time. It's called the "Preserving U.S. Attorney Independence Act of 2007", which is silly because US attorneys aren't supposed to be independent, they're political appointees. That doesn't mean that the US attorneys should overlook wrongdoing by allies of the President, but he is their boss.
The Senate passed this bill that would prohibit the attorney general from filling U.S. attorney vacancies for an indefinite time period. The attorney posts are subject to Senate approval.
As I wrote earlier, the to-do over Attorney General Alberto Gonzales firing some of his subordinates is nothing more than the typical criminalization of politics. This bill is nothing but a job security program for US attorneys appointed by President Clinton that President Bush decided to keep around for whatever reason (even though Clinton himself fired all 93 US attorneys when he took office).
On the House side is the "Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act of 2007" which is completely removed from reality.
This House bill would require the government to replace public housing that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The Department of Housing and Urban Development determined that 7,500 apartments are unsuitable for repair and has plans to raze the buildings to clear the way for new construction of mixed-income housing. Supporters contend that plan would leave poor people displaced by the hurricane with no housing. The bill would require HUD to make public housing available to displaced tenants and prohibit the agency from razing any public housing without a plan to replace it. Opponents contend that the mixed-income housing would increase the standard of living in neighborhoods with public housing by providing economic development.
The bill passed the House 302-125, but hopefully it will die in the Senate. Newsflash: millions of poor people left the Gulf region and aren't going back. Building government housing to a level that may not be needed is a stupid waste of money. Of course I oppose all government housing on principle, but I'm especially opposed to building structures that won't even be used because the poor people who would have lived in them are gone.
