Message posted by Joe on June 25, 2008 at 9:42:18 PST:
A former member of Congress and long-term friend of mine told me that it depends on senority and on what committee you are assigned to. A very few members of Congress on a very few committees are (apparently) briefed on some aspects of some projects. Just enough to be sure to lobby their colleagues to vote for the black spending programs, but no more than that. It seems to me Congress has abandoned most of its Constitutional authority to control (or even monitor) executive branch spending. Those who raise concerns (even in a world of 9 trillion dollars in debt; and another 100 trillion dollars in unfunded mandatory federal spending over the next 20 years -- much pf that debt owned by China and other foreign investors (which makes foreign policy impossible with those nations) -- are targeted in the next election; find their political opponents getting ample funding from PACs that support whatever they might have been opposed to. I believe this is the exactly Military-Industrial-Congressional comples that President Eisenhower tried to warn us about. (The word "Congressional" was in the first draft of that speech.)
In Reply to: Re: level of secrecy?? posted by Joerg (Webmaster) on June 25, 2008 at 9:04:51 PST:
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