[slipnslider]

Repealing SB174 has bipartisan support. The house already passed its repeal but it died in Senate because a separate took (that also repealed it) took its place but that separate bill stalled out.

174 is so small it can't go through both chambers on its own so it needs to get attached a larger bill like OBBA.

It's unfortunate because it appears both sides want this repealed to allow immediate amortization of domestic R&D expenses.

https://abgi-usa.com/section174/latest-and-greatest

[formerly_proven]

> 174 is so small it can't go through both chambers on its own so it needs to get attached a larger bill like OBBA.

There's a minimum size for laws?

[coliveira]

Theoretically no, but congress won't vote anything that has no collateral advantages to everybody involved.

[antonvs]

Which is one of the many ways in which the system is broken.

[rs186]

It's almost funny that small code reviews are preferred in software engineering (https://google.github.io/eng-practices/review/developer/smal...), but in Congress we have these stupid "big beautiful bill(s)" that are sometimes thousand pages long, and sometimes only released hours before a formal vote. Almost like these bills are intended to fool constituents, cripple opponents' plans, and created just in the hope that they get passed and signed into law without anyone looking carefully.

[caseyohara]

Code reviews for 10 lines of code: 100 suggestions

Code reviews for 1000 lines of code: LGTM

Omnibus bill packages get the same LGTM treatment where legislators don’t even read the whole thing.

[VladVladikoff]

The short timeline actually makes this an excellent opportunity for LLM analysis if you have a model which could digest the entire bill without reaching token limits.

[Braxton1980]

Why would a senator from Kentucky vote for a bill that doesn't benefit his state to a meaningful amount?

[ajmurmann]

Because they are a patriot. If not why are they in politics..?! Whom am I kidding...

[teitoklien]

Back during the communist vs capitalism and free market era

Politicians were patriotic like you hope them now to be, they were worried about the rise of communism and were extremely attentive and focused and unified to making sure capitalism and free market works for the masses, that everyday westerners are enriched and have better social and health outcomes than their communist counterparts.

It did succeed to the point that Boris Yeltsin after dissolution of USSR was dumbfounded by just looking at american grocery stores that are affordable for public in comparison to the Empty shelves back at home [0]

However after the end of cold war they gave up on bipartisan, or helping society as “one nation” in almost every major western democracy. They filed every major new infrastructure build with red tape, red tape, bureaucratic nightmare. They made the economy as a pingpong ball to intentionally sabotage it for the incoming rival presidency/prime ministers, while benefiting themselves with unsustainable debt. They gave up all public infrastructure like highspeed rail, cheap transportation like Greyhound Buses across american cities, cheap housing, good housing.They gutted our manufacturing and industries, outsourced all our jobs with no better ones for those without jobs to replace them.

Now everything’s going to shit, and they wonder why people are starting to vote in populists and authoritarians, they were sold a great and good ideal of men and women, parliamentarians working together united to deliver the public with better outcomes for everyone in a democracy. Yet now they see them busy with personal enrichment, ideological wars, petty infighting, inaction on key issues.

And then they wonder why people are voting in and then tolerating objectively authoritarian dictators sometimes evil sometimes good who promise to steamroll changes as a monarch/dictator, just in hopes that they just ignore the democratic chaos and finally deliver the public something (even though often they also just personally enrich themselves or make the problems worse) we lost our prosperity, authoritarians promised us prosperity if we give away our freedoms now most of us are going to lose both at current trajectory. All because of petty infighting and laziness and lack of patriotism among politicians.

European and American society will need another cold war of ideologies with them on one side to actually defend and work for common citizens again, they wont do it until then, they’ll only do the bareminimum while continuing their petty fights and lectures as “leaders”.

[0](https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/13/how-a-russians-grocery-...)

[ajmurmann]

> They gutted our manufacturing and industries, outsourced all our jobs with no better ones for those without jobs to replace them.

We have been very close to record-low unemployment last year and the real median household income is higher than ever

[xmprt]

I think unemployment is a poor metric if it's the only one you're looking at. Unemployment says nothing about the quality of the jobs. For example, if 90% of the country was employed in a minimum wage job, then the unemployment metric would look great but I don't know anyone who would call that a healthy economy.

[teitoklien]

10% of the population drives more than the bottom 90% of the population in consumer demand and purchase now, you think that’s normal ? This was never a thing until very recently, america’s wealth has skyrocketed one can argue the middle class is shrinking and certainly didnt gain their share of this wealth growth.

Go look at the debt levels of an average american, and realise that greater than a majority of americans dont even have $500 saved for emergencies in their account.

The unemployment rate is a sham that doesnt even count underemployment and it cleverly masks and removes people who were looking for a job, gave up hope and now are no longer looking for a job.

Adjust that medium household income statistics for purchasing power in usa across last 40 yrs, you’ll realise wages are same or have declined in real value term’s when the total wealth in country has skyrocketed.

Look there is nothing wrong with others enjoying their life but if the majority doesnt feel like they have safe equal and sustainable life sooner or later they give up on the existing system, at that point a country risks a lot of instability.

Unemployment rate has been cleverly gamed and distorted as a statistics in every major country from china to europe to usa, you name it.

Look at the median household income in terms of debt servicing, mortgage servicing, final disposable income, net wealth/assets of average income

If you make the same or lets even say a bit more money/income than mom and pop’s gen but you pay 50% of your income in housing rent or mortgage in major cities compared to only 10% back in previous gen’s times how is that better ?

And college fees have skyrocketed by 6-7x in real money terms while wages have not, thats an expensive thing too for a lot of kids.

Pensions are not a thing.

Im not saying america is completely broken, america is awesome and is equipped to do much better than most developed economies and especially compared to europe in future.

But we must admit there are problems that are fomenting troubles that can end up blowing over if we as a society dont start rapidly fixing it.

[selimthegrim]

It was right before dissolution.

[dwaltrip]

It does benefit his state, they will get higher quality software.

[Braxton1980]

Maybe? This isn't a direct connection and I'm not sure a voter from that state would care unless it was legislation that DIRECTLY benefitted them, maybe their state, or at best the country overall.

Even when a massive security funding bill was put forth the years after 9/11 to provide additional funding to NY, US ports, and other national security areas they had to pad the bill with funding to protect areas that wouldn't likely be targeted just to get support.

https://www.heritage.org/homeland-security/report/the-specte... (Yes it's insane that I'm linking to these horrible people)

That means even with a bill that is vital to US security, could be wrapped in patriotism, and at a time when NYers had sympathy from the rest of the country representatives were still selfish as fuck.

[jayd16]

But they can play games, drag their feet, get more concessions, and then pass it anyway with no repercussions.

[estomagordo]

Seriously?

[antonvs]

Sadly, that is entirely serious.

Arguably, that's the whole of politics: why should I give you something if you don't give me something?

The people involved are, generally, not deep thinkers, aren't aren't thinking much beyond their direct short-term advantage. The system selects against that.

[kjkjadksj]

No, the system selects for people who are brilliant for using it to maximize their own individual benefit. Never take the bait that these people are in anyway stupid.

[estomagordo]

Maybe that is the whole of politics in America then.

[Braxton1980]

Yes, check the reply for the comment above yours for an example where you'd think everyone would unite but still needed pork.

It's even worse if you're a Republican. If a bill comes up for one specific item that would increase government spending but not in your state what are you going to tell local Republican voters?

[weberer]

Anything that's not a budget reconciliation bill can just get filibustered in the senate by the minority party. That's why they're attaching everything to the OBBBA.

[Pet_Ant]

I think there is a limit on the number of bills that can make it through the procedures so it’s too low profile to get scheduled.

[sigwinch]

I don’t understand the downvotes. Fewer than, say, 2% of 15000 bills pass across two sessions. 274, to be precise. Some bill is always #275.

[cibyr]

It's so depressing to hear that congress can't even do small things that everyone agrees upon.

[Supermancho]

If they could be required to craft single issue bills, this wouldn't be as big an issue. Instead we get the clusters of good and bad that inevitably die or sometimes worse, pass.

[dragonwriter]

If everyone agreed on it, Congress would have no problem doing it (Congress itself, after all, is a subset of "everyone".)

[_dark_matter_]

That's still not true. As long as a group within "everyone" (or multiple groups) decide that their support is required to pass the bill, they can suddenly demand concessions and the bill now gets complicated with good and bad.

[dragonwriter]

> As long as a group within "everyone" (or multiple groups) decide that their support is required to pass the bill, they can suddenly demand concessions

Well, yes, but then everyone doesn't really want it, do they? Someone wants something else, and wants that something else enough that it is worth jeopardizing the supposedly universal goal for it.

[Dylan16807]

Yes they do want it.

If you've ever negotiated, I bet you've done the same thing of jeopardizing something you want in order to get something else you want. If you never do that, you'll make a lot of deals where you're riding the edge of just barely acceptable and the other person is taking advantage of you. But in this case, with a standalone law, doing it gets pretty rude and we'd be better off if nobody did it.

[cj]

It’s possible for everyone to want something, while simultaneously being incapable of getting it done.

[candiddevmike]

A highly disproportional subset of everyone, maybe. Though uncapping the house wouldn't fix the Senate (maybe adding some more states would)