The bill signed into law by President Obama on February 17th has been named the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Stimulus Plan), and it is an enormous piece of legislation. It has some other not so affectionate names such as Generational Theft Plan, Porkulus, Spendulus, and many others I am certain. Regardless of anyone’s view of the plan, there is one thing that is definite, and that is the blatant disregard for the American people.

Members of our Congress that voted for this plan should be held accountable for Gross Negligence. A 1071 page bill was rushed through to voting without sufficient deliberations. A “no” vote should have been the default until enough time was given to fully examine and study the bill. Instead, it was quickly passed so it could subsequently wait for four days for the President to sign. This is four days that could have been used for analysis. Why did Congress feel so compelled to rush? Did Congress want to end the session and return home, were there vacations to Europe waiting for certain Congressional members, was support waning for this bill as time progressed? Unfortunately, the answer to all these is yes. The question that should be on America’s mind is do “We The People” deserve better? Such an enormous piece of legislation was not even read by Congress. They show such contempt for all Americans that they did not even give due consideration to something that will obligate Americans for years and generations to come. Is it too much to expect them to read and study the proposal, or to ponder the current and future consequences of it? Apparently, that was the case. “We The People,” the ones that voted them into office to represent and serve us, have been considered irrelevant to the greater goal of them serving their own agendas.

Gross Negligence is a very high hurdle as a legal standard, it is so blatant that even attempts at limitation from it are often not even enforceable. Gross Negligence requires more than egregious negligence, it goes further to include intentional, willful misconduct. Having negotiated many agreements with banks myself in the past proved they were famous for limiting their liability for everything except Gross Negligence, which means they knew there would not be much recourse to them because the standard of proof is set too high. It has to be intentional, willful, and blatant negligence before you can pursue remedies against them. Do these words sound familiar regarding our Congress? For the provision to be of minimal risk to a bank knowing it would be exceptionally difficult to prove the breaching of the threshold of Gross Negligence, our Congress just arrogantly pushed right past it, and certainly they did it with conviction that “We The People” will not likely do anything about it.