Who Wouldn’t Get Fired for This?

Congressman John Conyers made this remarkable statement regarding reading a bill before voting on it?

“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill,’” said Conyers.

“What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”

Here’s the video:  Why would I read health care bill John Conyers.  These people are paid $169,300 a year and they are voting on legislation that will alter 1/6 of the American economy and they don’t know what they are voting on? Who demanded that this be done in two days?  Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.  If it takes them six months to read the bill, then TAKE THE SIX MONTHS!!! We wonder why there is so much government waste and fraud?  It’s really quite simple.  All the crooks and lobbyists are reading the bill very carefully, every page, probably 2-3 times.  Why?  Because as soon as it is passed they will know exactly where all the loopholes are, where the best opportunities for fraud are, so that they can rip off the taxpayers for billions, while Congress says, oh well, we better make the program bigger and put in more regulations and enforcement.

How much money do you make?  In your job, what would happen to you if you did your job without following instructions and did so willfully?  If you were a nurse and administered medication without following instructions what would happen to you?  If you were a fireman and rushed into a building without following safety procedures that are there to protect your fellow firefighters what would happen to you?  What is the fundamental job of Congressman, if not writing laws?  And they can cavalierly say, they don’t read what they are voting on?

Why does Texas have such a booming economy?  Could it be their legislature only meets once every two years?  Could it be they are required by law to complete their business in 140 days?  Could it be the legislators are only paid $7,200?  Think about it.

In the beginning days of 1789, Congress was paid only $6 a day, which would be about $75 daily by modern standards. But by 1965 members were receiving $30,000 a year, which is the modern equivalent of about $195,000.

Currently the average lawmaker makes $169,300 a year, with leadership making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) makes $217,400, while the minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate make $188,100.

John Adams made $6 per day, $75 per day in today’s dollars.  Nancy Pelosi makes $217,400 per year.  Whom do you admire more?  If that doesn’t make you ill, you are made of sterner stuff than me.

Code of Hammurabi

When I was in engineering school, I was introduced to this part of the Code of Hammurabi, an ancient Babylonian king:

• If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death.
• If it kill the son of the owner the son of that builder shall be put to death.

It was intended to drive home the point that as engineers we should take what we do very seriously as someone may get killed if we get careless.  What could be more careless than what Conyers said.

I have said this before, the bill that created the Interstate Highway System, was only 29 pages long.  Our tax code is horrendous and incomprehensible, the stimulus bill is a disaster, Cap and Trade is another unread boondoggle, and health care is following.  And for this we pay these people, or should I say they pay themselves since we don’t vote on their salaries, more than four times the national average?

Read the 10th Amendment folks, we have got to take back our government and cut it down to size.

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