Another massive piece of legislation passes the House of Representatives dubbed Cap and Trade, with 300 new pages added at 3AM on the day of the vote. Now, I like to read and if you give me a real page turner I hate to put it down, but I am hard pressed to remember ever knocking off a 300 page book in one day. When I was in telecommunications and becoming a subject matter expert on access tariffs, I had to get up and walk around or get a cup of coffee after every ten pages just to clear my head. So a piece of legalese that is over 1,000 pages would probably take me a month to slog through.
But this is not about me. Go ask how many Representatives (Salary $174,000 per year) actually read what they were voting on and see what kind of answers you get back. If you keep asking, “No, but did you read it?” it will be great fun to see the squirming and hear the double talk. This morning on Fox News Carol Browner, Obama’s energy czar, was asked if she read the bill. She responded that she was very familiar with it. She was asked again if she read it, and she said she read vast portions of it. The host responded, “So you didn’t read it?” To that remark Ms. Browner took umbrage, “That’s not fair!…” she began.
Don’t They Get It
With a major piece of legislation that can destroy our liberties and burden us and our children with the cost for years, these overpaid, narcissistic, arrogant employees of ours, don’t even read what they are voting on. Let’s take Ms. Browner for example, accepting that she is not in Congress and therefore didn’t vote on the bill. Even if she read 99.9% of the bill, what if the 0.1% of the bill that she didn’t read said, “ignore all of the preceding material, and raise Congress’ salaries 10%.” If anyone has ever been told to read the fine print on a contract or got snagged because you didn’t, you know that if you didn’t read all of it, you don’t know what you just voted on. Even Henry Waxman, one of the sponsors of the bill admits, he didn’t read it.
Brevity is the Key
When I was studying computer science I learned that perfection in a program was not reached when there was nothing more to put it, but when there was nothing more to take out. The beauty of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution is that they can be read in their entirety on your lunch break. I believe the legislation that created the Interstate Highway System in the Eisenhower Administration ran 29 pages. This created a massive public works project like we have never seen before, in just 29 pages. Why are these people in Washington if not to represent us? Drafting a bill that runs over 1,000 pages is to pack it with favors for special interests that will then help those who approved it get re-elected. It is all about power. Getting it, keeping it, expanding it, all at our expense.
Tea Party anyone?
