What do you do about a congress that doesn’t write the laws it passes and doesn’t even read the laws it passes?
This is, for those paying attention, rule by decree.
Since it was evident to me at least that even the president was unfamiliar with the details of the laws he was pushing, the identity of the ones ruling by decree is unclear. If it wasn’t him, and it certainly wasn’t congress or the senate, where did these laws spring forth from?
We have a pantomime congress and a pantomime president. Not much chance of checks and balances with this clown circus.
Much of what you described is done behind the scenes by the “Hill Rats”, congressional aides, who work with “the Beltway Bandits”, consultants and lawyers, and yes, lobbyists, to create the actual text of laws.
Congressmen and senators make it clear to their Hill Rats what they want, and leave it up to the Hill Rats to do it. And while the Hill Rats regularly insert goodies into such bills for their friends, if they get too rude about it they will get fired.
So yes, congress knew pretty much what it was going to get before they signed it, without having read the text. Neglected in this is that, while Romneycare was cited as the founding idea behind Obamacare, nobody remembers that Hillary had assembled a huge team to make Hillarycare, and they did so. This was not forgotten either, in the run up to Obamacare, and a lot of cutting and pasting was done.