Herman Cain just vowed to never pass a budget plan, or anything else, for that matter, should he be elected:
CAIN: Engage the people. Don’t try to pass a 2,700 page bill — and even they didn’t read it! You and I didn’t have time to read it. We’re too busy trying to live — send our kids to school. That’s why I am only going to allow small bills — three pages. You’ll have time to read that one over the dinner table. What does Herman Cain, President Cain talking about in this particular bill?
If Herman Cain were elected, he would be forced to veto the Godfathers Pizza Menu, because with nutritional information, it is well over three pages.
Tonal Crow
And once more Republicans combine effective rhetoric with terrible policy.
Can Democrats learn to combine effective rhetoric with good policy? Is our Democrats learning yet?
Rommie
To quote Charlie Brown, my stomach hurts.
BudP
Vote 4 me! All new laws must b < 140 chars.
jl
But Cole has done nothing here but provide a very sound and thorough analysis (made in more detail and with more care than ever before) why providing nutritional information is a very bad thing, and will prevent us from solving the budget problem, and ruin the country.
The GOP will pick up this insight and it will be good news for Republicans.
Lots of glibertarian moles here at Balloon Juice. That’s what I think.
mistersnrub
Duh! The FDA is an unconstitutional encroachment on the freedoms and liberties of small business owners and the job creators – no one would be required to add pesky nutritional information to their food products in Herman Cain’s America!
C.J.
@Rommie:
The Godfather will do that to ya. The pizza, I mean.
Evolved Deep Southerner
You remember that story about how Karl Rove was walking with a bunch of reporters and said that Howard Dean was his favorite Democratic candidate – and then started chanting “Howard Dean! Howard Dean!” as a jeer to some nearby protesters?
That’s how I feel every time I read about the Republican candidates – except I can’t decide which one’s name to chant. “Howard Cain! Howard Cain!” or “PAY-lin! PAY-lin! PAY-lin!” or …
PurpleGirl
I’m sure the contract by which he bought Godfather’s Pizza was longer than 3 pages… Or there would have to be a very short contract with massive numbers of addenda. Fool.
jl
@BudP:
Are you advocating twittermocracy, or twittermockery?
I for one think they are both good ideas.
OzoneR
@Tonal Crow:
No, because in America, the two are mutually exclusive.
Warren Terra
What is hateful to corporations, Jeebus, and the wealthy do not do. That is the law. The rest is commentary; go, and learn it
See, writing laws concisely isn’t hard. I don’t see what your problem is.
(The phrasing is different at my hyperlink, but you’ve got to work with the websites you find, not the websites you want to find.)
Dennis SGMM
To give Cain his due, this is perfect for glibertarian conservatives:
HR 5321 Abolish the EPA
HR 5322 Abolish the Department of Education
HR 5324 Repeal the Tax on Investment Income
etc.
Not three page bills, one-sentence bills.
Arclite
Herman Cain: the president who would only work during dinner.
Kyle
I don’t have time to read 2700-page bills, but have no problem reading 900 three-page bills.
OzoneR
How about this for laughs
But I’m sure they can be easily shamed by Obama’s bully pulpit
CT Voter
Win.
The menu should probably be vetoed for any number of reasons, though.
Arclite
Shorter Herman Cain: I’ll only except bills via Twitter.
Tonal Crow
@OzoneR:
I’m not sure what you mean by that. The Democrats had some effective rhetoric in the service of good policy on Ryancare in the recent NY House race. But (1) will they keep it up; (2) will they branch out to cover other issues; and (3) will they learn the lesson that rhetoric really matters, or will they forget
the moment the next election’s overtomorrow and the Republicans threaten to call them “weak on defense”, “soft on crime”, etc., etc.?Suffern ACE
I suppose he would be the head of the party were he to win, but honestly, I think Congress is allowed to write and pass the laws and make them as long or as short as they deem necessary. I think they’ll be keeping that power.
Marc McKenzie
You’ve got to be s****ing me.
All right, that’s it. After reading what this idi–I mean, what Cain plans to do–I need a drink. Hell, make it a double.
And people still spew out that Obama is worse than Bush….
Where’s that drink?
Dennis SGMM
@Suffern ACE:
You’re overlooking the extraordinary powers granted to (Republican) presidents during a time of war.
Tonal Crow
@OzoneR:
No. But they can be fought from that beachhead. Or Democrats can simply roll over and ignore it and lose again.
AAA Bonds
Three pages?
Look, no offense, but is he retarded?
Davis X. Machina
@Marc McKenzie:
…and less qualified than Palin.
We’re boned.
Zifnab
@OzoneR:
You know, I’d love to see some front group – “Concerned Conservatives for America” – run that against a bunch of the newly elected Republicans. Republicans have gotten a lot of mileage out of demonizing the term “Democrat”. It would be interesting to see Democrats start playing on public ignorance and voter apathy by running the Republicans’ own ads in their own territory against their own candidates.
Then just sit back and see what happens.
Alex S.
Cain isn’t any worse than Pawlenty and his budget plan.
Mike in NC
President Cain would do for Eddie Murphy’s career what Sarah Palin did for Tina Fey’s.
jwb
@Zifnab: How much would it cost to hire a phone bank for an evening? How much would it cost to get phone numbers for Boehner’s or Ryan’s district?
jwb
@Alex S.: True, the whole field is pretty much equally bad when it comes to policy. The debates should be fascinating from that standpoint, since orthodoxy means that there won’t be a smidgen of light among the candidates in terms of policy so it will all turn into some kind of weird dog whistle popularity contest. Bachmann, however, scares me a little, because she’s the one candidate who can both mobilize the faithful and isn’t at all beholden to the establishment. We could be in for real fascism if she was able to sneak into the presidency.
Martin
@BudP: Does the law have to have a schlong pic attached?
Tonal Crow
@Alex S.:
From my very limited sampling, Cain’s worse because he’s got better rhetoric.
pj
Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. 421 pages too long.
Arundel
We should make all legislation listicles, with pictures, but no more than 3 pages.
Seriously, this bitingly stupid tactic, complaining about the length of important legislation etc, the war on complexity- it’s just so pointless and anti- intellectual. Yes, we are a complex superpower, with complex systems of governance, finance, trade, war, a thousand other things. We are not the kitchen table. The mere length of a document as something to complain about is why someone like Cain should never get near anything approaching power.
The Roman Empire was vast and complex,and they did it with scrolls. Scale and complexity in systems is not inherently bad- the Vatican and the British Empire were also vast and complex systems that persisted for centuries. Like the conservative mania for the flat tax, the right-wing obsession with “small government” as an inherent good is never quite explained. Except of course as removing the brake from whatever their corporate masters want to do, often to the detriment of the rest of us.
Warren Terra
@Tonal Crow:
Pawlenty’s insane budget plan is a very scary sign, and much worse than the nonsense coming out of Cain’s mouth.
My reasoning is this: Cain is a loon, but he’s a sincere loon, and he’s propounding nonsense that he came up with more-or-less on his own. Pawlenty, on the other hand, is a “serious” candidate, backed by a whole squadron of campaign consultants and professional policy advisors. And his disastrously insane “budget” was a document, not a slogan.
Basically, what I’m trying to say here is that, based on their reading of what the Republican primary voter wants to hear, and even more so (given that there’s 7 months to go) what the Republicans’ gatekeepers want to hear, a team of the best available Republican policy and political advisors got together and concocted a budget proposal that a ten-year-old could tell is nonsense on stilts. That’s a lot scarier phenomenon than just about anything Cain could say.
cat48
CT Voter
@cat48: And the collateral damage from Weiner continues to accumulate. Clarence Thomas? Who’s that?
Linda Featheringill
That is so funny! Maybe we should get this man a standup gig.
What? He was serious? Oh.
Triassic Sands
Somewhere in this country is a secret school where Republicans go to become stupid. It simply isn’t possible for so many people to be this stupid without some serious help.
Xecky Gilchrist
These yayhoos really have no idea how complex running a nation of 300 million people is, do they.
This is government by “sit ’em down and tell ’em to knock off the bullshit” simplemindedness, innit.
OzoneR
@Tonal Crow:
Yes they did, by co-opting the Republican bad policy of “we need to control the deficit and the debt” and saying “just not THAT way.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPa8teSoLwg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/user/KathyHochul#p/a/u/2/ZtgQyYGtz50
Yes Kathy, lets get serious about cutting the deficit. You know what she didn’t mention in any of these ads…jobs.
So the answer here is obviously to accept bad Republican arguments and frame them in your way. Like I said, mutually exclusive
OzoneR
@Tonal Crow:
and they are, except they’re far more powerful.
RalfW
What the modern GOP reminds me of most is the troupe of kids in that Star Trek episode where anyone past puberty dies. No parents to teach them jack.
“Bonk Bonk! Bonk Grups on the head!”
If Kirk didn’t beam down to fix’d everything, the kids would all die in the next couple years.
And Obama, as much as I like him, ain’t got James T. Kirk’s charisma, so we’re screwed.
mclaren
This is a GREAT campaign promise!
Just think of the bills Cain would offer to congress:
STEP 1: STEAL UNDERPANTS
STEP 2: ??????
STEP 3: ELIMINATE DEFICIT!
EarBucket
It has to feel nice for Sarah Palin, no longer looking like the most ignorant candidate in the primaries.
El Cid
You miss the most important point.
Bills and laws are un-Constitutional. Congress is un-Constitutional. Article 1 of the Constitution is un-Constitutional.
The only laws which are needed and which are Constitutional are those which are written in the Constitution.
Only bills can Constitutionally become law which quote the Constitution and have no other words than dates and names, with the exception of laws which say that we will support and enforce the Constitution, or that the Constitution is good.
piratedan
@Alex S.: it’s like comparing death by decapitation or death by multiple gunshot wounds, both suck, both leave you dead, the rest is just details
Caz
Seriously?? What a weak-ass post!! So Cain thinks we need to start keeping bills to a short enough length so people can actually read and understand it, and somehow that’s a bad thing?? I know you hate republicans and think they are all worse than satan, but really, if you’re going to criticize him, at least have something of substance to say. How f’ing pathetic can you get, lol. “Cain is a republican, so he’s a piece of shit. I don’t really have anything of substance to say about him, so let’s see, he thinks laws should be short and easily understood. Well, um, that makes him a jackass, yeah, that’s it!” More pathetic even than the post is that you have no idea how pathetic you are, lol.
Caz
I’d be a little nicer to ya, but then it might not be up to juicetard standards without an “asshole” here and a “jackass” there, lol.
FlipYrWhig
How does Herman Cain feel about, say, loan documents or credit card agreements?
Redshift
@Caz: I know I shouldn’t, but speaking of weak-ass:
If he’d said that laws should be more understandable, it would be a non-news item. What he actually said was that all laws should be less than three pages, which is saying that making them easily understandable is more important than the actual purpose of laws. It’s the equivalent of legislating pi to be 3 — it declares by fiat that things must not be complicated, while stubbornly ignoring the reason why they are complicated. That’s why it’s idiocy unbecoming of a serious candidate for dogcatcher, much less president.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
well, herman cain would make for an interesting scrotus decision on whether tl, dr is a signing statement, or a line item veto.
Ron
@Suffern ACE: Sure, they can pass laws, but the idea of congress passing anything veto-proof these days is hard to imagine.
Ron
@Caz: Do you really think it’s possible to put together a budget bill in under 3 pages? Or almost any bill of substance? I’m all for the idea of trying to simplify things when its reasonable, and perhaps one doesn’t really need 2700 pages for a budget, but the idea that every bill can be that short is simply not remotely realistic.
TreeBeard
Does this mean that every employee of Godfathers’ that has a contract more than three pages can declare it null and void? The entire middle management could break rules that were on page 5 saying “TL;DR”…
TreeBeard
Does this mean that every employee of Godfathers’ that has a contract more than three pages can declare it null and void? The entire middle management could break rules that were on page 5 saying “TL;DR”…
freeulysses
Caz-
I’m going to take a shot in the dark here and guess that you’re neither going to join in a discussion here nor have you ever looked at the actual text of a law. Imposing a 3 page limitation on all legislation is absurdly short-sighted. Are conservatives believing their own bullsh*t now? I always thought things like complaining about the length of Congressional bills was sort of a joke, but maybe I was wrong.
My fantasy baseball league has more than 3 pages of rules, for example. Certainly the budget for the world’s largest and most complex military should be shorter than that.