Congress Is Woefully Unprepared to Regulate Tech

[smileysteve]

On the edge of political rules for the site; and blunt cynicism.

Congress seems woefully unprepared to regulate X; Committees have limited effectiveness; even if some members carefully listened to all testimony; partisan gridlock at present would be a limiting factor over the last 10 years.

- Privacy Laws; Congress proposed laws including device manufacturers giving encryption certificates to the government; at a similar time where leaked NSA tools have become the primary tool of Ransomware.

- Agriculture; The conclusion is generally that farm subsidies, ethanol subsidies aren't based on what's good for the country or energy efficiency, but one of the first primary caucuses.

- Immigration; Decades of high numbers of h2b (migrant) visas with no path to citizenship for DREAMers; Inflation partly caused by lack of workers thanks to a large retiring generation (and lower average life expectancy), while legal immigration limits keep potential workers from legal jobs.

[User23]

H-2B isn't an immigrant visa. It's for seasonal labor who comes when there is work to be done and leaves when there isn't.

[exabrial]

> Congress Is Woefully Unprepared to do anything

Fixed if for you.

Unless it's giving themselves a raise of course.

[lockhouse]

The founding fathers would tell you that this is a feature, not a bug. They really didn't want it to be easy for the federal government to do much. The states were meant to hold most of the power as they were closer to the people.

[solardev]

They're not much better at regulating anything else, for that matter.

[ericsaf]

Potential solutions mentioned in the article.