It’s probably a little late in the day here on Thanksgiving for you to use this recipe - but it’s darn good, mainly because of the cream cheese (which is also why they call it the “sinful” mashed potatoes recipe.)

“Sinful” Mashed Potatoes
(serves 6-8)
2 C hot or cold mashed potatoes
1 large package (8 oz.) cream cheese, room temp
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 eggs
2 T flour
salt and pepper to taste
1 can 3.5 oz. French-fried onion rings

Put potatoes in a large mixing bowl. Add cream cheese, chopped onion, egg, and flour. Beat at medium speed until ingredients are blended, then high speed until light and fluffy. Taste, add salt and pepper if needed.

Spoon into greased 9-inch-square baking dish. Distribute canned onions evenly over the top. Bake, uncovered, 300 degrees, for about 35 minutes.

Delicious! But wait! Before we eat, let’s think briefly of others less fortunate than ourselves.

Members of Congress do so on your behalf, and there are several bills in Congress intended to alleviate hunger. Would they succeed? Finding solutions to hunger and poverty is obviously more easily said than done.

There’s S. 1172 and its House counterpart, H.R. 1938. Both are called the “Hunger-Free Communities Act of 2007.” The brief legislative summaries of these bills say they would “reduce hunger in the United States.” (Oy. Grand claims like that put these bills in the “and a pony” category.) Basically, the bills would make grants to various anti-hunger organizations and programs.

H.R. 206, the Anti-hunger Empowerment Act of 2007, would reduce red tape in the food stamp program and give grants to nonprofit anti-hunger groups for a “Beyond the Soup Kitchen” pilot program.

S. 3108 and H.R. 6127 are both called the “White House Conference on Food and Nutrition Act.” They would require the president to call a White House Conference on Food and Nutrition. (Well named bills, don’t you think?)

S. 1575 is the FEED Act of 2007. It would give grants to public agencies and nonprofit institutions “to encourage the use of community resources to combat hunger and the root causes of hunger by creating opportunity through food recovery and job training.”

Finally, there’s H.R. 2129, the Feeding America’s Families Act of 2007. It would “strengthen” the Food Stamp Act of 1977 in various ways. Take a look at the wiki article for the bill to see them all.

It may not be that you want to support these programs, but it is a day to be thankful and to think of those who have less bounty than we do.

And do keep in mind the old saying, amended for this day, “Give a man a turkey and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to turkey and you - no, wait . . . teach a man to fish - yeah, that’s it, fish - and you feed him for a lifetime.”

This time it’s not a politician to blame for making exaggerated claims. It’s one of these coalitions that spring up when a certain set of people want a certain set of goodies from the government.

The Coalition for Free Broadband Now wants the Federal Communications Commission to auction of some of the electromagnetic spectrum under rules that would provide for free, “family friendly” wireless broadband service.

It’s touting a pair of bills, H.R. 5846, the Wireless Internet Nationwide for Families Act of 2008 and S. 3420, the Open Wireless Internet Act.

The FCC probably should get this spectrum out there for better use, but this really sounds like industrial planning. Just let it be bought and sold an a spectrum market like land is bought and sold so that it can find its most valued uses. OR put it out there for use by anyone - like they did with the spectrum that wifi works on.

Two things are for sure: 1) Somebody’s going to pay for it. There is no free lunch, and there’s no free broadband. 2) It’s not going to happen now. It’s now right now, and that free broadband isn’t here.

Free broadband? Yeah. And a pony.

Here’s the current voting on H.R. 5846, the Wireless Internet Nationwide for Families Act of 2008 and S. 3420, the Open Wireless Internet Act. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki articles about the bills.

Before leaving for its August recess last week, Congress saw the introduction of its 10,000th bill. Meanwhile, not a single one of the twelve annual bills that direct the government’s spending priorities in 2009 has passed the Senate and only one has passed the House. Congress is neglecting its basic responsibility to manage the federal government, and is instead churning out new legislation about everything under the sun.

The current Congress is on pace to easily beat the record 10,537 bills introduced in the 109th Congress. In the 109th (2005-2006), the 10,000th bill was introduced on September 18th, well after the August recess.

The number of bills introduced in each Congress has been rapidly increasing over the last twelve years. In the 104th Congress (1995-1996), there were 6,542 bills introduced. In the 105th (1997-1998), 7,529. The 106th (1999-2000), 107th (2001-2002), and 108th (2003-2004) saw bill introductions in the high 8,000s, and in the 109th (2005-2006), the number of bills first pierced through 10,000.

Yet, each year, Congress has failed to timely complete the annual appropriations process, which divides taxpayer dollars among different federal agencies and programs, guiding the government’s priorities.

The current 2008 fiscal year began on October 1, 2007, but Congress didn’t finish the spending process until nearly three months later, on December 26th. Congress didn’t finish work on the government’s priorities for fiscal 2007 until mid-February of that year, more than a third of the way through the fiscal year. Currently, congressional leaders may already be planning on letting the spending process collapse.

So what is Congress focused on instead? We’ve been cataloguing a few of them here.

Our “Jack of All Trades - Master of None” series has been listing bills where Congress is wandering away from the basic responsibilities of the federal government or into trivia. The latest example? A bill that would require the postal service to issue a commemorative postage stamp on the subject of inflammatory bowel disease.

Our “. . . and a Pony” series point out where Congress overpromises what it can do. There seem to be a lot in the area of health care these days. Health care for all Americans! - as if saying it confidently enough will make it so. Members of Congress should be getting back to basics and passing spending bills on time - not posturing or introducing fanciful bills.

A particularly annoying recent bill was introduced simply for political posturing. It would have moved the detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the grounds of the Supreme Court. This is not a Congress that takes its job seriously.

In case you’re curious, H.R. 6641 was the 10,000th bill introduced in the current Congress. (We didn’t count joint resolutions, concurrent resolutions, and all the rest). The bill would put small businesses in the queue for federal largesse if they’re in an area that has suffered a disaster. The bill was introduced by the five members of Congress representing Iowa. Y’know, the Iowa that just saw all the flooding. What the state lost in corn may be made up in pork.

Something about health care seems to bring out the braggadocio in Members of Congress. (Braggadocio? - big word! How about “exaggeration.” Wait! I’ve got it - “boasting.”)

Something about health care seems to bring the boasting out of Members of Congress. Last time it was “personalized medicine.” This time it’s primary health services.

The author of S. 3412 promises that it “would achieve access to comprehensive primary health care services for all Americans and improve primary care delivery through an expansion of the community health center and National Health Service Corps programs.”

It wouldn’t just help improve access to health care. It wouldn’t deliver more health care. No, this bill would “achieve access to comprehensive primary health care services for all Americans.” And a pony.

There are lots of problems with the health care system. There are some things that the government might not even be able to change, much less fix. So it’s nice to set goals and everything, but don’t go telling my people - that’s right, I’m looking out for all America now - that you’re going to achieve access to primary health services for all.

Here’s the current vote on the bill. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.

We’re back on energy issues, with the introduction of a bill to solve every last problem with one fell swoop. And we’ll all get a pony.

According to its statement of intent, H.R. 6529 would “greatly enhance the Nation’s environmental, energy, economic, and national security by terminating long-standing Federal prohibitions on the domestic production of abundant offshore supplies of oil and natural gas.” All that, all at once.

Last week, President Bush lifted an executive ban on producing oil from the Outer Continental Shelf. He encouraged Congress to lift its ban so that there could be more drilling.

Now, this much is true: If there were more drilling for oil, there would be more oil. When supply rises, prices tend to fall, or at least rise less quickly. There’s been talk, of course, that this wouldn’t happen quickly enough to get us any benefit. And lower prices would reduce pressure to move to other energy sources, meaning that we would continue to burn carbon-based fuel, with the environmental problems that carries.

But not with H.R. 6529. It would not just enhance, but “greatly enhance” all of our interests - environmental, energy, economic, and national security.

And wait a minute - national security? There’s a connection between oil and national security, of course. We need oil and other energy sources to maintain our military. BUT, the concern with high energy prices today is about driving our big cars for long distances, not about whether we’ll be able to muster tanks to fend off attacking Canadians. The national security dimension of oil is over-played, and over-played in this bill.

Its promise to fix everything with a snap of the fingers gets H.R. 6529 membership in the “. . . and a pony” club.

Here’s the current vote on the bill. Click to vote, comment, learn more, and edit the wiki article for the bill:

H.R. 6498 is called the Genomics and Personalized Medicine Act of 2008. It was introduced on Tuesday this week.

The bill’s statement of purpose is what wins it membership in the “and a pony” category of congressional bills: “To secure the promise of personalized medicine for all Americans by expanding and accelerating genomics research and initiatives to improve the accuracy of disease diagnosis, increase the safety of drugs, and identify novel treatments, and for other purposes.”

Personalized medicine for all? Wow - that’s a big, dramatic claim, and it’s probably unattainable.

But there’s no doubt of good to be done from genetic research. The bill would create a Genomics and Personalized Medicine Interagency Working Group at the Department of Health and Human Services. It would promote spending on genetic research, including on a “national biobanking initiative.” The personalized medicine part would be advanced by the creation of a “Registry on Analytical and Clinical Validity of Laboratory-Developed Genetic Tests.” The bill would spend $235,000,000 in fiscal year 2009 on these and other programs.

Good things? Yes. Delivering on the out-sized promise in the bill’s statement of purpose? Not so much.

Here’s the current voting on the Genomics and Personalized Medicine Act of 2008. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill:

I take a quick glance at all the bills that are introduced in Congress to make sure you’re getting the very, very best information from WashingtonWatch.com. (And maybe I’ve got a touch of OCD.) As I do, I often stumble across bills that stand out just for something in their titles. The bed bug bill was one.

Then there are the bills whose titles promise too much. You know it’s too good to be true.

I’ve created a special category for these kinds of bills called “. . . and a pony” because they’re like what you’d ask Santa Claus for after you finished with the stuff you thought you might actually get.

Tonight’s bill is H.R. 6444. Now, it doesn’t have one of those made-up titles like “The Everyone Will Be Happy From Now On Act,” but it’s close. (It might later; they’re sometimes added.) It just has a brief summary of what the intent of the bill is. And H.R. 6444’s intent is “To provide affordable, guaranteed private health coverage that will make Americans healthier and can never be taken away.” And a pony.

All these things are good, and I think a competitive system for private health coverage would help control costs and make people healthier, or at least leave them with more money to have fun with before they die - which is inevitable, y’know (and that’s OK).

But “guaranteed” health insurance that “can never be taken away”? Hey! If I’m in an insurance pool and other people in it have taken up parachuting and base jumping because their methamphetamine habit just isn’t interesting enough - I want them OUT of my insurance pool! I want their insurance taken away! Because they’re raising my rates!

So the first inductee into the “. . . and a pony” insurance pool is H.R. 6444, “to provide affordable, guaranteed private health coverage that will make Americans healthier and can never be taken away.”

Here’s the current voting on the bill: click to vote, comment, learn more, and edit the wiki article: