Yay, let's tack on a bunch of controversial and useless junk onto a vital transportation bill so it risks being voted against and or vetoed.
If these ideas were so great they would be able to stand on their own in their own bill and be debated about. But instead, no, let's tack them onto military budgets/transportation funding/education bills, you know, stuff that people often won't vote against.
Most other countries frankly don't allow this. A bill or act has a single theme and a single mandate. I don't understand why the US allows it, and it screams of corruption/bribery/etc.
It may be more common in other countries than you think.
Canada's recent Conservative government got in the habit of using massive "omnibus" budget bills to pass contentious laws alongside necessary budget legislation when they were a minority government that needed the support of opposition members of parliament to legislate.
That government has just recently been replaced by a majority Liberal government, which is unlikely to continue the practice, as they no longer need opposition support to pass legislation. The ruling party has enough MPs that in practice the government should be able to do whatever it wants for the next four years.
That is kinda how political negotiation works. One side says, "We want X." The other side says, "Ok, we'll support X if it also has Y." Repeat that, in this case for a few years, and you have a very large number of Y's.
The problem with saying this,
> Because tons of it is likely to be things that would not pass if they were part of small little individual deals where the vested interests were not so huge.
Is that the thing that potentially would pass would never make it out to see the daylight without negotiation, which is how you get the things that potentially wouldn't pass stand-alone. (And I say potentially, because for every person we're probably talking about different things.)
Any bill that is that important and that uncontroversial has got a lot of political potential energy. And that means that politicians can take some of that lack-of-opposition, add some pork, and wind up with a personal benefit and a slightly-less-unopposed bill.
The end-point of this process is that most bills will barely pass, unless they're so hot politically that it's easy to attack someone over messing with it (think some of the post-9/11 terrorism related votes).
Apparently there are fixes for this even in our own country. Oregon's state legislature, for instance, has a clause which says what the bill is about. Any amendments that don't meet that qualification are not allowed to be tacked on.
> I don't understand why the US allows it, and it screams of corruption/bribery/etc.
Seems to me like you understand it completely. The US is, like most countries, mired in a bit of corruption/bribery/etc. I am of the opinion this is simply part of the human condition, and is virtually impossible to eliminate.
Read to the end for this gem: "Under Representative McHenry’s bill, purchases would be restricted to investors who earn more than $200,000 a year or have a net worth of $1 million."
Plus, I don't think founders will really like this as it will probably find a different valuation than they thought they had, see snapchat.
Per @twoodfin's comment that is just a qualified investor restriction on buying the shares. It is a good thing. Since employees are selling common stock rather than preferred, they won't get the same price as the current valuation anyway, but it could let them capture some of the value that is going only to investors now. As I mentioned elsewhere the biggest losers in this unicorn bubble are employees (and to a lesser extent founders) who won't see any value for their common stock in a wind down of a former unicorn. Having the ability to cash in when the market is irrational (assuming they do) would give them an out.
Isn't this the usual SEC definition of a "qualified investor"? It's the same regulation that prevents middle-class investors from buying into hedge funds (or investing in startups!)
Regardless of the merits of the restriction, I can see why it would similarly be applied here.
> Read to the end for this gem: "Under Representative McHenry’s bill, purchases would be restricted to investors who earn more than $200,000 a year or have a net worth of $1 million."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the motivation for that to keep unsophisticated investors out, and limit it people with money to lose? I think there are similar restrictions on hedge funds, too.
I can see the logic behind that, since it's much more likely for a startup to go bust, and I wouldn't want to see regular people losing their life savings. Though, personally, I think I'd prefer there just be a limit based on something like percentage of net worth invested in these sorts of things.
Anyone with more perspective care to provide more details? I thought employees were always able to sell their non-public shares as long as the company consented. So I'm not clear why this bill would be a windfall when compared to the status quo.
[+] [-] Someone1234|10 years ago|reply
If these ideas were so great they would be able to stand on their own in their own bill and be debated about. But instead, no, let's tack them onto military budgets/transportation funding/education bills, you know, stuff that people often won't vote against.
Most other countries frankly don't allow this. A bill or act has a single theme and a single mandate. I don't understand why the US allows it, and it screams of corruption/bribery/etc.
[+] [-] Tiktaalik|10 years ago|reply
Canada's recent Conservative government got in the habit of using massive "omnibus" budget bills to pass contentious laws alongside necessary budget legislation when they were a minority government that needed the support of opposition members of parliament to legislate.
That government has just recently been replaced by a majority Liberal government, which is unlikely to continue the practice, as they no longer need opposition support to pass legislation. The ruling party has enough MPs that in practice the government should be able to do whatever it wants for the next four years.
[+] [-] jdmichal|10 years ago|reply
That is kinda how political negotiation works. One side says, "We want X." The other side says, "Ok, we'll support X if it also has Y." Repeat that, in this case for a few years, and you have a very large number of Y's.
The problem with saying this,
> Because tons of it is likely to be things that would not pass if they were part of small little individual deals where the vested interests were not so huge.
Is that the thing that potentially would pass would never make it out to see the daylight without negotiation, which is how you get the things that potentially wouldn't pass stand-alone. (And I say potentially, because for every person we're probably talking about different things.)
[+] [-] ThrustVectoring|10 years ago|reply
The end-point of this process is that most bills will barely pass, unless they're so hot politically that it's easy to attack someone over messing with it (think some of the post-9/11 terrorism related votes).
[+] [-] justinlilly|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _cudgel|10 years ago|reply
Seems to me like you understand it completely. The US is, like most countries, mired in a bit of corruption/bribery/etc. I am of the opinion this is simply part of the human condition, and is virtually impossible to eliminate.
[+] [-] djb_hackernews|10 years ago|reply
Plus, I don't think founders will really like this as it will probably find a different valuation than they thought they had, see snapchat.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twoodfin|10 years ago|reply
Regardless of the merits of the restriction, I can see why it would similarly be applied here.
[+] [-] gherkin0|10 years ago|reply
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the motivation for that to keep unsophisticated investors out, and limit it people with money to lose? I think there are similar restrictions on hedge funds, too.
I can see the logic behind that, since it's much more likely for a startup to go bust, and I wouldn't want to see regular people losing their life savings. Though, personally, I think I'd prefer there just be a limit based on something like percentage of net worth invested in these sorts of things.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] not_that_noob|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jkot|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cft|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tlrobinson|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexpw|10 years ago|reply
Deeply disappointed when I clicked.
[+] [-] dang|10 years ago|reply