A Terrible Idea Is Slipped Into The House Budget.

Just when you think the loonies in the U.S. House have reached bottom, they surprise us and take things down another couple of notches.
 
Oh, sure . . . it’s a good thing that enough of the members of the House got together in a bi-partisan effort and we have a budget. But there’s always someone, isn’t there! Somebody who pulls off something outrageous, something clearly without any merit . . . something so obviously bought and paid for that all our charitable thoughts for politicians disappear . . . poof!
 
At the last minute, buried deep in the House budget bill is a very brief provision that—Are you ready?—would allow robocalls to our cell phones! If that isn’t a terrible idea, I don’t know what is.
 
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My wife and I each have cell phones and our home phone is a land line. I would guess that two out of every three calls we get on our home phone are from people asking for money. Most of these are from charities and non-profits we support, and some are from political parties and individual political campaigns. It’s common practice for these organizations to sell their donor lists, so the number of calls we get has grown over time.
 
The telltale clue is the long silence when you pick up after the phone rings. Sometimes, after three or four “hellos”, someone comes on the line—Lucky me!—but more often than not, the caller never materializes. Someone in Nevada or Florida or Oregon picked up a half-second before I did. So I hang up and go back to whatever I was doing.
 
At least, if you do connect, there’s a live person on the other end of the line and most of them are reasonably well trained and are not overly persistent. But robocalls? That’s a real intrusion, especially if they start coming to our cell phones. Adding injury to insult, depending on your plan, they can even cost you money.
 
The notification I got about this outrage came from Consumers’ Union and I have emailed them, asking for the name or names of the cheesy politicians who are responsible for slipping this bill into the budget. If and when I get a response, I’ll pass the information along.