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If we have learned one thing about the United States government and things that it agrees with each other on, it is national security and hurting terrorism. Combating Terrorism can be done in many different ways, but the way it is done the the RAWR Act has two main benefits. One being the ability to restricting funds for terrorism and the other in protecting wildlife. The RAWR Act stands for Reducing Animals With Rewards. I wonder if that acronym was chosen on purpose for its similar sound when pronounced to a roar, often attributed to big cats and bears. What this act did was allow the state department to offer rewards for information that lead to the conviction of animal traffickers, often whom were connected to terrorist activities, groups, or some other large criminal enterprise.

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The RAWR act was sponsored by senators from both parties and passed through the senate with unanimous support. It helps combat wild life trafficking through more funding to anti trafficking and anti poaching groups. My uncle works closely with anti wildlife trafficking groups and the United States state department in Myanmar, a country with an unregulated and un monitored border with China. In talking with him, he said surprisingly that the IRS is involved, and they are the scariest agency for poachers and traffickers to deal with. In a meeting one time he recalled an IRS agent saying, “Im just an accountant, but when I’m done with these guys, I want them to have to use a public defender. I will seize their bank accounts, their houses, their cars, their watches, everything. When I’m done I want them to be broken men. I want to take it all.” Because of the RAWR act, it is possible to get information to groups and agencies that are in thee position to stop illegal trafficking of endangered animals, animals that are being exploited to the point of near extinction.

Among the bill’s many co sponsors are both the notable senator from Florida, Marco Rubio and the former presidential candidate from California, Kamala Harris. This alliance is not publicized, and I doubt many people knew that these two individuals worked together to get this bill passed because I had to look up a List of Co-Sponsors in order to find out. This alliance wasn’t in the New York Times, at least not anywhere easy to find if it was, and this lack of reporting on the many bipartisanship issues that get through the house and the senate are why Americans think that our country is so polarized. While there are a considerable sum of polarizing issues out there, there are more issues that everyone can get behind than many people, including myself in the past, realized.

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While I’m sure that everyone reading this has heard plenty about the corona virus, there are some things that one docent necessarily hear about when discussing it. One thing that stuck me was the overwhelming bipartisan support for a bill to help Americans in dealing with this epidemic. For the first time since the beginning of this blog, we will see a bill that has passed with less than 10% opposition in the house. When you think about the relationship between the president and the current speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi D-Calif, the first image that I assume that conjures is the state of the union address where Donal Trump refuses  to shake Pelosi’s hand and Pelosi Tears The President’s Speech In Half in half, all on national television. If this is not a perfect description of the animosity shared between the two, one would be hard pressed to find a better example. In this same world, is it possible for one to imagine that there would be a bill that was victualed hammered through the house by Nancy Pelosi that at the same time was being endorsed by Donald Trump? Well as difficult as it may be to picture, this is exactly what happened less than five days ago with the passing of Bill H.R. 6201. This bill will provide billions in spending for improved access to free testing for the corona virus, help pay for paid sick leave, and provide at least 1 billion in relief funding for vulnerable Americans to purchase food with. Ina time of seemingly fractured government, this bill passed with 365 votes in favor and 40 against. That means that about 9.1% of members of the house voted against this bill. This is Not The Only Bill that is expected to pass with such over whelming support either. There is an expected economic relief package that will be right on the heels of this bill in early April. At a time when the government is supposedly fractured beyond repair, vast numbers of representatives rose above the the political pandering to attempt to aid those among us who are obviously in need of help. So when one assumes that the nations will be divided for ever based on wether you subscribe to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, it shows that when the nation and all of her people are in danger form an enemy invisible to the naked eye, our government can step up an work together to pass legislation to minimize the suffering of the people they were chosen to represent on the national level.

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If one thing is clear, when the health of the nation is at risk, bills addressing the issue are much more likely to make it through congress with bipartisan support than ones that do not directly effect peoples health. This is evident with both bills concerning the corona virus and the opioid epidemic. In a bill that was passed in 2018 with only 1 vote against it in the senate, it required the U.S. postal service to screen all packages coming from china for fenetaynal. It will also helps provide funds for addiction treatment centers, job training and mental healthcare. It also allows for people who do not have health insurance to be treated for addiction under Medicare. Before this bill was passed, Medicare could not pay for addiction treatment leaving those uninsured with no way to pay for treatment, and if one really think about it, it is unlikely that the majority of people who need to be treated for opioid addiction are covered by some private healthcare provider. The fact that this bill was passed with only one opposing vote in the senate, Mike Lee R-Utah, is pretty impressive. This may have been do to the carnage the opioids are wrecking on American streets. Over 70,000 people died from opioid over doses or from opioid related health issues. In comparison, 112 People Have Died From The Corona Virus in the United States. It was also passed in the House, which has 435 members, with only eight votes against. An important thing to keep in mind here is that this bill was being passed during a very contentious time in Washington, Bret Kavanaugh’s conformation to the Supreme Court. I you remember what the political atmosphere was like during that time period, it really is a shock that every single senator less one, agreed on the same version of a bill, and that 398 Representatives in the House agreed. (I realize that 435-8 does not equal 398, some members of the house abstained from voting on the bill) Congress Also Approved an 8 billion dollar spending bill in order to combat the opioid epidemic, although that is approved on a year to year basis and there is no guarantee that there will be funding of that magnitude available every year. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., proposes to contribute 100 Billion over ten years to fight the crisis with a guaranteed 10 billion a year. That did not get through, but hey, 8 billion is better than nothing.

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This bill also helps provide funds for medication to safely ween people who are addicted off the drug, greatly reducing the relapse percentage. So while it may appear on the nightly news that our government is helpless divided, one can think back to a time in 2018 when the two sides seemed bitterly at war in public, but yet, managed to pass a bill that only managed to garner on nay vote in the Senate.

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Back again to the ground in the middle. To find something else our divided nation agrees on is relativity simple if you think about what almost all people hold dear, the life of leisure and ease that comes when you retire. This life is something that is relativity looked upon as a good thing, something to strive towards, and the ability to do so today for many Americans is predicated on their ability to access social security, a program that they have been paying into for their entire lives. This social program is a key element to allowing the older, retired, generation of Americans sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labor after working for so many years before hand. The ability to retire is generally based on how much money you have saved away and your age, which is the detriment in your ability to receive social security benefits. According to The Center of Budget Policy and Priority, Social Security keeps more then 15 million senior citizens above the poverty line. Seeing elderly people struggle is something that I think most people, regardless of their political affiliation, want to avoid seeing, but that only comes from my own personal experiences.

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When regarding social security, 68% of Republicans and 78% of Democrats think that there should be no cuts made to Social Security spending, according to The Pew Research Center. This is a relatively significant amount of people on both sides of the aisle that agree that the government should not cut the Social Security budget. The problem, is that by the year 2035, predictions are that the social security trust fund that millions and millions of Americans have paid into will be completely dried up.

While both parties seem to agree the spending on the program should not be cut, the issue arises when the discussion falls to a possible solution for the rapidly drying spring of monies. A 2014 Survey conducted for the National Academy of Social Insurance found 77% of respondents agree it is critical to preserve Social Security benefits for future generations, even if it means increasing Social Security taxes paid by working Americans. This view creates problems because the other 23% of people don’t want to increase their taxes to pay for a program that may very well not be there when they reach the golden years. It may be very difficult to convince those 23% of people that giving more money to the program from their pay check is a good idea, even if over 2/3 of the nation are behind the idea.

So while their is growing concern that working people now will not be able to access the program, the broad consensus across the political board is that we need to do something to keep the program in place, even if it means raising our taxes.

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We all make jokes about our FBI agent that is watching our messages, it is a common joke whenever one sends a message that is meant as something innocent that can be taken as insidious. Messages like “your the BOMB” or something of the nature are usually followed by a thought or comment that, “Now I’m probably on a watchlist or something for saying bomb”. While this is a running joke, there is some truth to the matter. It is not realistic to think that there is an FBI agent watching every single person because if that were true there would need to be over 300 million agents, and then who would watch the agents, and then who would watch the agents watching the agents, and so on and so fourth. What Is Actually Happening is that the NSA or other intelligence groups have collected phone records of every single American for the last seven years under the Patriot Act. This includes the number of incoming and outgoing calls, their phone numbers, the duration of the call, the location both calls took place from, and that’s just the stuff they admit to, if you listen to the conspiracy theorists it could be a whole lot more in-depth.

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The Amash Amendment was proposed to limit the ability of intellegece agencies to collect data in this manner without a warrant. In the words of the Democratic representative Ted Leiu from California, “The fourth amendment (the one preventing unreasonable search and seizure) does not have and asterisks next to it saying that our intelligence agencies do not have to listen to it.” The Amash Amendment garnered support and disapproval from both parties. The parties are split relativity evenly with about half of the Democratic representatives supporting and opposing the bill respectively and approximately the same amount supporting or opposing the bill on the republican side of the aisle. The Members Of Congress That Voted Against The Amash Amendment can all be found on the roll call if your interested to know wether your representative wants to continue to allow the data collection. “It’s a question of balancing privacy and security, It’s a question of who will do the balancing. Right now, the balancing is being done by people we do not know, people we do not elect.” says Mick Mulvaney  R-S.C.

A majority of Republicans voted against it, 94-134, while a majority of Democrats voted for it, 111-83. The amendment had such bipartisan support and opposition that it made for some very interesting alliances. Former Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., all voted against the amendment. These are some high ranking political opponents all working together to defeat a bill. It is also worth noting that this was during the time of the Obama administration, so the 111 democrats that voted for the bill went against the largest political office holder in their party, the President of the United States. Out spoken republican representative Rand Paul from Kentucky voted for the bill, along with the equally out spoken democratic representative Ted Lieu from California. To think that the two of them voted together on a bill makes me wonder if congress is really as divided as everyone thinks it is. I wonder when the next time the two will vote together will be.