The Senate voted 55-45 to cut the Social Security taxes of wealthy Americans, thus providing more tax cuts than even the President asked for, while re-instating some Medicaid cuts, the latter issue by the way argued to be what we really should be talking about these days.
On its face, it is nice that they decided the cuts were a bad idea, though what we really need to do is to seriously examine the problem of the system at large. The Social Security matter is of the "no comment" variety -- the way to deal with the problem of Social Security solvency is not really to take less money is, even if it is done privately. In other words, we are not just talking about private accounts here -- we are talking about less taxes for the rich, thus taking money away from funds for those less well off.
CIA director Porter Goss also testified:
Under sharp questioning at a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mr. Goss sought to reassure lawmakers that all interrogations "at this time" were legal and that no methods now in use constituted torture. But he declined, when asked, to make the same broad assertions about practices used over the last few years. ...
In the session, Mr. Goss was challenged by Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican who spent years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. When Mr. McCain asked Mr. Goss about the C.I.A.'s previously reported use of a technique known as waterboarding, in which a prisoner is made to believe that he will drown, Mr. Goss replied only that the approach fell into "an area of what I will call professional interrogation techniques."
He vigorously defended "professional interrogation" as an important tool in efforts against terrorism, saying that it had resulted in "documented successes" in averting attacks and capturing important suspects. Mr. Goss said that Congress had been kept fully informed of the techniques used by the C.I.A., and that those currently being used did not constitute torture, which is prohibited by law.
This is a new way to define "professional" -- professional now means "productive." If this is the case, it is unclear if the hearings on steroids fit the term. To the degree that they might be useful, I support such discussions. Why shouldn't the government on their owns examine the issue, since it involved federally regulated substances and the national pasttime as well as practices that affects much more than a few baseball players and their fans? For instance, parents whose children died of steroid use testified, and studies have found that thousands of high school students used or are using some form of steroids.
Nonetheless, the value of questioning the likes of Curt Schilling* is questionable, especially how it was done. Part of the problem was that the news coverage alone required full attendance of the committee members, some asking questions that honestly were pointless. Still, I think something might have came out of it, if only a bit more pressure on MLB to be serious about the issue. The attention alone forces their hand a bit, adding pressure to firmly enforce their current policy and keep alive talk that a stronger one is necessary.
It surely is a more legitimate use of their time than trying to intervere with tragic disputes involving when an incompetent patient might want their feeding tube removed. Congressional Republicans went as far as trying to call Terry Schiavo as witness, hoping the courts (which already rejected an attempt by state legislators to interfere with pending litigation) would "protect" her now that she was technically a federal witness. This is offensive -- would these people want Congress to interfere because they disagreed with how they acted in a similar situation?
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* Mark McGuire really looked sad and pathetic as did Sammy Sosa, both of whom just might not be made for the national stage. The presence of Sosa's female translator, the only woman among a panel of ballplayers, was striking. On the other hand, having Curt Schilling calling a former player a "liar" was good television. Likewise, all those snide comments about Mark not saying anything that might have led to criminal penalty was a bit too snarky. If Congress was allowed to supply immunity, maybe more useful testimony would have been possible.