Friday, February 19, 2010

"the clock ran out" oh, really?

The gentlemen and gentle-ladies most responsible for the legislature's failure to pass a budget, are pointing out that, while yes they did fail, it wasn't by much, and it was only because "the clock ran out".

Let's start with the "clock ran out". Is it just me, or does that seem like a really stupid reason to stop working a monumental problem, when the solution was just hours away?

Let's assume for the sake of argument, that there really is no possible way that the legislature and governor could have gotten together, sung Kumbaya wikilink, and then agreed to hang around for a just a little while longer.

Saying, "the clock ran out", is calculated to leave the impression that something happened that was beyond their control. Is it honest to imply that they were the victims of a clock, in the face of so much time wasted?

Why not get the budget done, and then start investing hours of debate on whether Pluto is a planet, or any other one of the other insipid memorials they did find the time to attend to.

They blew it, and there will be no film at 10:00,
because robust webcasting and searchable archives,
fell victim to "the clock" as well.

They managed to prevent any of what they did, didn't, and did instead, from being shown to voters in the next election.

First, before we do one other thing, let's end the culture of corruption and incompetence in Santa Fe. Before we discuss another bill, let's get cameras on everything. Let's draw the line between what we have a right to watch, and what we don't.

With respect to transparency and open government, let's go as far as we are ever going to go, right now, today, before we do another thing. No more incremental reform. No more glacial reform. Let's decide where we are going to finally end up, and go there now.

And then we will begin the debate on the other important issues of the day.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

MAybe the "clock will run out" for some of these legislators when it comes to voting them back in?

Anonymous said...

Ched - the clock ran out before the session started. The leadership KNEW going in that the budget was DOA ... the D caucus is highly fractured, the Speaker has NO moral authority - it took almost three weeks to piece together a budget from the House that they knew wouldn't fly in the senate - and when the the senate quickly turned it - the House never saw it because the Speaker never presented it to them. the clock didn't run out and they weren't close ... even in terms of hand grenades, nuclear weapons or horse shoes .... they weren't close. The Speaker lied about it and the Governor has lied about it (after all - their lips were moving). Period.

Anonymous said...

Hey, in this economy, they needed a $50,000 a day special session.

Anonymous said...

Isn't all this a form of collusion and/or raqueteering?

Anonymous said...

There's really no excuse for them not getting to the budget. It's the only constitutional requirement of a legislative session, so it's baffling that the Democrat Party leadership didn't "get to it" or the "clock ran out."

Anonymous said...

There is 1 reason that comes to mind: they CANT make it work, and they don't want that political failure to haunt them around the upcoming elections.
Once more, we are sold out to benefit them.