It’s a Miracle! Spending Bill Contains Virgin Birth Provision.

Our new $1 trillion spending bill¹ contains a provision that allows donors to give ten times more money to political parties than in the past. This may or may not be a good thing. Jonathan Bernstein, for example, tells us that some experts on campaign finance consider formal party organizations (as opposed to independent Super PACs) to be “a force for pragmatism and against extremism.” So more money flowing in that direction might be a net benefit.

Fair enough. But check out the third paragraph of the Washington Post’s writeup:

Neither party’s leaders in Congress would claim responsibility for inserting the new provision, which was tucked into the final pages of the more than 1,600-page spending bill on Tuesday evening.

The bare minimum we should expect in an alleged democracy is to know where our laws come from and who sponsored them. Instead, our two major parties, which are normally at each others’ throats like rabid dogs, regularly connive to produce the legislative version of a virgin birth whenever the subject is something that benefits politicians themselves. This happens again and again, and it’s ridiculous. If Mitch McConnell is truly dedicated to a transparent Senate, how about putting a stop to this nonsense when he takes over next year?

¹In case you’ve been vacationing on Mars, this bill is affectionately known as the Cromnibus, a mashup of CR (continuing resolution) and omnibus. That’s because it’s an omnibus spending bill that funds lots of agencies in one swoop, but for one particular agency it’s merely a short-term continuing resolution. That one agency is Homeland Security, and they get only a CR for now because Republicans consider this a kind of revenge against President Obama for his recent executive order on immigration. Welcome to kindergarten.