Is There Anything These Boobs Won’t Try To Legislate Or Intrude Upon?
And yes, it’s another Republican:
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, may be a skinny guy with a high voice. But he’s angrily setting out to tackle the biggest powers in college football, vowing to pound them until they reform the Bowl Championship Series.
He called them out Wednesday, as he and Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wisc. — respectively the top Republican and Democrat on a Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust — released a list of topics that panel plans to consider this year.
A bit buried on Page 4 of an eight-page list, amid somewhat sleep-inducing reading on oil and railroad antitrust, is a nifty paragraph about the BCS.
“The BCS system leaves nearly half of all the teams in college football at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to qualifying for the millions of dollars paid out every year,” their joint statement says.
Then it drops its first unexpected bomb: “The subcommittee will hold hearings to investigate these issues.”
That is followed by a second: “Sen. Hatch will introduce legislation to rectify this situation.”
Hatch’s office did not comment about exactly what may be in the yet-to-be-written bill — including whether it might attempt to mandate a playoff system similar to that in college basketball, or simply mandate that all colleges be given a fair shot to play their way into a national championship.
no one is particularly happy with the BCS and how they rank colleges or the method of “playoff” they’ve come up with. However let me be very clear here. This is none of Congress’s business. None. Nada. Zip. Zero.
Sorry if BSU was 13-0 and wasn’t crowned national champs. But that’s life and the system that’s in place. Get over it and worry about the things which are important – like shrinking government instead of making it more intrusive.
I’m coming to the conclusion we should hold Congress to the same standard as concerns their pay as we held AIG about the bonuses.
If we did that, most of these yahoos would be flat broke or owning the Treasury money at the end of the year. That’s certainly one way to cut spending.
~McQ
[HT: Liberty Papers]
If investigating football and other sports was all that Congress did, we should be grateful because they wouldn’t be wasting our money in huge “stimulus” and omnibus spending bills, nor pillorying business people and threatening to rob them of their pay. However, with the economy in trouble and the president threatening to bankrupt us AND nationalize key sectors of our economy, it’s a crying shame that members of the Senate feel that investigating professional football is worth their time.
When will we cry, “Enough!” and throw ALL these wardheelers out of office and try again???
I sent an email to Barton, even though he’s not my Rep and told him to get government out of the NCAA and worry about immigration, the economy, etc.
And they wonder why they’re the minority party.
Along with the AIG bonus 90% tax that the Dems were backing, along with half of the Republicans in the House voting along, along with congress’ attempt to invade the MLB regarding steroids, and along with countless other examples, this is just one more example of how congress asks itself, “What can we do about this?” Instead of, “Should we do anything about this?” Or even, “Is this even our place to do anything about this?”
It’s going to get worse before it gets better. If it gets better at all.
Cheers.
Gonna have to disagree here. Sure it is against my libertarian principles. But I have to make an exception every now and then.
Considering how much federal money the NCAA schools receive I don’t have a problem with the Senate telling them to stop being so Goddamn greedy and stupid, and give the people what they want.
You are not really talking about a free market anyway, you are talking about a bunch of socialist institutions with socialist managers, who teach socialism. So I say hoist them by their own petard.
Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for Hatch when he was up for re-election a while back. And it was precisely because of crazy statist stunts like this. Anyone who thinks conservatives or Republicans aren’t into statism, or are only into it because Democrats are, should take a closer look at Utah politics.
I hope the focus on this sort of thing more.
The more time they spend on crap like this, the less they have to screw the economy…