BoomerZoo Almanac for July 29-August 4, 2007: Signings of the times
It must be only recently that the U.S. president started taking such long summer holidays, as I learned in my
research for this week’s review of history Boomer-style. It turns out that Congress used to not let the big guy go off on his August vacation until he’d finished his homework, which frequently included signing bills into law.
For example, in 1946, the United States Atomic Energy Commission was established as President Harry S. Truman signed the Atomic Energy Act transferring control of atomic energy from military to civilian hands to enable the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. I’d say the history jury is still out on that Act and both its immediate and long-term roll-out.
We know for sure, though, that we like Ike for confirming that America is for God, which is why God is for America.* In 1956, following a joint resolution of the U.S. Congress (something we rarely see these days) is signed by the president, authorizing "In God We Trust" as the U.S. national motto. If, like me, you thought E Pluribus Unum was our national motto, you can—also like me—Google it.
Lyndon B—who apparently agreed with the Muslims that trust in God is all well and good, but it’s still a good idea to tie up those camels—signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law on this week in that year, thus adding Medicare and Medicaid to the program and insuring jobs and long lives to a lot of Boomers – who are just now wondering how they’re going to enjoy all those extra years without that Social Security income they were counting on.* Although we mostly trust in God, we Boomers eventually became suspicious of Eisehower’s Atoms for Peace program. Nuclear power plant operators began battling newly minted environmentalists, so the Congress came up with a way to mediate: create a whole new department and give the complainers a government job—with benefits!* To that end, President Jimmy Carter in 1977 signed legislation creating the United States Department of Energy. Sometimes the presidents used their vacation time to meet with other guys who wanted their autographs. For example, in 1991, President George H.W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (called Start) in Moscow to reduce stockpiles of nuclear warheads by about a third. By this time, we had reached that critical point in U.S. history where we had to find good acronyms, because the government was becoming so inundated with words, titles, summaries, white papers, blue books, yellow pages…So many things to be named!* Even the Canadians occasionally do a little legal rearranging in the summer. In 1972, Ottawa announced that first-time offenders for cannabis possession would not be jailed. And the Canadians joined all the European nations (except Albania) in signing the Helsinki Final Act treaty, which aimed to ratify Europe's post war boundaries and guarantee human rights. The main signatories were the U.S. and the USSR, but Canada’s benign presence did not serve as a guideline for the Big Two MAD countries to get along. The Soviets continued to repress their human rights activists, and the U.S. continued to act purer than the driven snow about the whole business.* And where there’s a signing, you can bet there’s also an UNsigning, as in the case of the 1987 vote by the Federal Communications Commission to rescind the Fairness Doctrine, which required radio and television stations to present balanced coverage of controversial issues. *In all fairness – even though that’s no longer a requirement of me – these all truthiness. I have not bothered to try to seek out any evidence to support these statements. Now get out of that suit and tie, stop worrying about US, and go outside and play!
