A great story in The Washington Monthly explains the rule-making process that accompanies new laws. Someone has to interpret the law and that creates an opportunity to game the law. Read the story:
The Washington Monthly - The Magazine - He Who Makes the Rules
"We might imagine [the law-making process] as a fairly boring assembly line—a series of gray-faced bureaucrats diligently stamping laws into rules—but in reality, it’s more of a treacherous, whirling-hatchet-lined gauntlet. There are three main areas on this gauntlet where a rule can be sliced, diced, gouged, or otherwise weakened beyond recognition.
ReplyDeleteThe first is in the agency itself, where industry lobbyists enjoy outsized influence in meetings and comment letters, on rule makers’ access to vital information, and on the interpretation of the law itself.
The second is in court, where industry groups can sue an agency and have a rule killed on a variety of grounds, some of which make sense and some of which most definitely do not.
The third is in Congress, where an entire law can be retroactively gutted or poked through with loopholes, or where an agency can be quietly starved to death through appropriations bills."
. . .
So, "After laws are passed, it is then By quibbling over 'as appropriate's and misplaced verbs. By crafting crafty legal arguments and drowning understaffed rule makers in industry-funded hogwash. This is the way a law ends: not with a bang but with a whimper."
This is just part of what makes the legal system the legal system. We see this in state legislation as well. However, it seems there is less lobbying and more a rushing of bills and proposed legislation without taking experts' opinions into consideration. For example, (while I don't know the particulars) there is new legislation that was just passed that gives exemptions for those families that set up "an" education savings account for their kids. This is to say, if you have more than one kid; and thus, desire more than one education savings account, seems like you're out of luck due to this legislation at the moment. It's oversights like these that are so unnecessary and due to sheer stupidity, it seems.