Congress On Television...

Once again our beloved members of Congress take on one of the tough issues facing America. The mandatory conversion of all television broadcasts to digital television by February 17, 2009. The Feb. 17th deadline — the so-called "hard date" to end traditional analog transmissions — was a compromise between House and Senate legislation that called for different end dates. The House initially proposed ending analog transmissions on Dec. 31, 2008; the Senate had backed a hard date of April 7, 2009 — after the March Madness college basketball tournament. Someone in the Senate must have figured that all of these old television sets belong to basketball fans. Do they actually waste time on this stuff?

The measure also would allocate up to $1.5 billion to help consumers with older, analog TV sets purchase converter boxes so they would continue to get service in the digital era. WHAT??!! Converter boxes?? The Senate had also proposed a much bigger converter box subsidy of $3 billion. The compromise figure of $1.5 billion is meant to help the households who rely on free, over-the-air television. First Congress mandates a change and then they force us to pay for converter boxes for older televisions. How many converter boxes will $1.5 billion buy? How many are needed? How do they know how many of the people who are too cheap to get cable or satellite television don’t have digital televisions already? I would love to know who lobbied our esteemed members of Congress to get the contract for converter boxes. This is beyond belief. They have turned watching television into a right for people and we taxpayers have to pay to keep some old television with rabbit ear antennas around. What they need to do is tell these people who are too cheap to upgrade – It’s time to buy a new television…

Time to Bench Congress...

Just when you think that our members of Congress can’t sink any lower, they come up with yet another ridiculous waste of time and taxpayer money. Calling the Bowl Championship Series “deeply flawed,” committee chairman Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, has called a hearing on the controversial system used to determine college football’s national champion. A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, charged with regulating America’s sports industry, announced it will conduct a hearing on the BCS this Wednesday, after this season’s bowl matchups have been determined. NCAA Division I-A football does not have a playoff. The Bowl Championship Series was established in 1998 to determine a national champion using the traditional bowl system and a mix of computer and human polls to set up a championship game.

“Too often college football ends in sniping and controversy, rather than winners and losers,” Barton said. “The current system of determining who’s No. 1 appears deeply flawed.” Barton said he does not have legislation in mind to force a change, but said he hopes congressional hearings will spur discussion and improvements. It won’t be the first time Congress has looked at the BCS. In 2003, the Senate probed whether the system was unfairly tilted against smaller schools. Then why are you guys doing it again??!!

This is all about is the tens of millions of dollars that are payouts for the teams competing in the BCS bowl games. Our members of Congress can smell money and don’t want to let any of it get away from them. How about spending your time stopping illegals from coming across our borders? Why do you continue to waste time and taxpayer money on non-issues like this and fail to address the real issues affecting the country? It’s called – Doing what we elected you to do…