Homestead mailing list

["Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT gmail.com>]

On 11/11/06, DSanner106 AT aol.com <DSanner106 AT aol.com> wrote:
> [Pelosi] has issued a list of major issues she intends to have up for a
> vote in the first 100 days that include stem cell research and about a half
> dozen equally volatile issues.

One of those volatile issues is raising the minimum wage; as a
referendum it passed during the elections in half a dozen red states.

You may consider stem cell research controversial, but the House and
Senate passed it only to have Bush exercise his first veto. It's
supported by that rabid leftwinger Orin Hatch.

Other things Pelosi wants to do are cut interest rates on student
loans, enact the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, change the
law to make it possible for Medicare to negotiate drug prices for
Medicare, and break the link between lobbyists and legislation (good
luck on that one).

The Democrats are also determined to bring back oversight to
government contracts. I kind of wonder how so many giant contractors
managed to spend billions to reconstruct Iraq and have nothing to show
for it, don't you?

I'm struck by the overall pessimism about our government on this list.
I don't expect the second coming, but I'm hopeful that the new crop of
populist representatives who will be going to Congress will make a
difference.

Maybe they will even bring back habeus corpus...

Marie