OUTSTANDING! Pelosi won't let it get near the floor though is my guess...her party depends on ignorance to succeed.
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Posted on 08/24/2009 11:49:13 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
During August recess, many legislators have heard an unexpected amount of discontent from their constituents about what is happening on Capitol Hill, particularly regarding healthcare. Some people are justifiably terrified at what the government could do to healthcare, should it get its claws even further into it. Others demand a public option for health insurance and are adamant that healthcare be treated as yet another absolute entitlement. One thing everyone agrees on is that the final bill needs to be read and understood by all legislators before a vote is taken. To any American, this is common sense. In Washington, that is unlikely to happen.
There is much confusion and debate over what is and is not in the reform plan being considered. Are there or are there not so-called death panels? What are the end-of-life consultations really for? How will private insurance be affected? Can you keep your current plan or will you eventually be forced into a government plan? Will it pay for elective abortions or not? What are the implications for medical privacy? The truth is no one knows what will be in the final bill until it is on the House floor, and provisions could be added in and taken out in the wee hours of the morning before.
In February, the House was forced to vote on an over 1,000 page “stimulus” bill that had first been posted on the internet just after midnight the morning of the vote. It passed. Then in June, House leaders rushed a vote on the cap-and-trade bill, even though an over 300 page “manager’s amendment” making substantive changes to the bill, was introduced shortly after 3:00 a.m. the morning of the vote.
Washington thrives on crisis. If enough people can be convinced that we are in an emergency, they will more likely tolerate rushing legislation to the floor like this. Last minute changes will be slipped in, benefitting who knows what special interests and at what expense to the taxpayer. But the mantra is repeated over and over: We are in a crisis. We must act immediately.
It should be unconscionable for legislators to vote in favor of legislation they have not had the opportunity to read. This is why I have re-introduced the Sunlight Rule, H.Res 216. The Sunlight Rule prohibits any piece of legislation from being brought before the House of Representatives unless it has been available to read for at least 10 days.
The Sunlight Rule allows citizens to move for censure of any House Member who votes for a bill in violation of this act. Because the Sunlight Rule could never be waived, any Member could raise a point of order requiring any bill in violation to be immediately pulled from the House calendar until it can be brought to the floor in a manner consistent with this rule. This rule does not require that Members read the bills. It merely guarantees the opportunity to do so. It has 4 cosponsors.
Justice Louis Brandeis famously said, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” The Sunlight Rule would do much towards negating the cycle of pseudo-crises and cleaning up the legislative process here in Washington. I sincerely hope this is the year Congress remembers its deliberative duties and passes it.
Heads up!
Bills should be clean and no longer than 50 pages.
“The Sunlight Rule prohibits any piece of legislation from being brought before the House of Representatives unless it has been available to read for at least 10 days.”
And yet AGAIN, we discover that our darkest fears Pale into insignificance, at the Reality, that this Bill is even NEEDED.
Thank you Dr Paul.
We already have too many bills. More are not needed. We need to reapeal 90% of the bills and acts.
“Bills should be clean and no longer than 50 pages.”
I couldn’t agree more. They pass incomprehensible 1000 page long bills and complain about “disinformation” being spread. The bills are written in a manner that they can distort their intent in order to get it passed and then implement their socialist schemes.
Judge Learned Hand wrote about the income tax code “In my own case the words of such an act as the Income Tax… merely dance before my eyes in a meaningless procession: cross-reference to cross-reference, exception upon exception — couched in abstract terms that offer [me] no handle to seize hold of [and that] leave in my mind only a confused sense of some vitally important, but successfully concealed, purport, which it is my duty to extract, but which is within my power, if at all, only after the most inordinate expenditure of time. I know that these monsters are the result of fabulous industry and ingenuity, plugging up this hole and casting out that net, against all possible evasion; yet at times I cannot help recalling a saying of William James about certain passages of Hegel: that they were no doubt written with a passion of rationality; but that one cannot help wondering whether to the reader they have any significance save that the words are strung together with syntactical correctness.” Change a few words and this would apply to Obamacare, Tax and cap, Stimulas and whatever is coming next.
Agreed! 100% However, ..... We HAVE This Mountain of POS Legislation enacted without the enactors even READING the Damn things first.
The most Vital bill we DO need, is one requiring that for Every new law Congress wants, Congress must First Get Rid of 6 Existing Laws.
Ping
The Congress, who seems so insistent on insuring that all contracts written anymore between consumers and sellers be written in a plain language understandable at a sixth grade reading level, (so the average American receiving a public high school diploma can understand them), should also be required to write all laws so they can be understood at a third grade reading level.
This will insure most members of Congress can understand the bills, without the necessity of having two lawyers reading them.
We are in a crisis. We must act immediately.
This is being reactionary. Virtually all of today's politicians are reactionaries. They thrive on fear and crisis, and soooo many Americans, now a majority, swallow it - the crisis of course being developed by the Media, which loves it.
Deeper thought and long term concern, e.g. the US Constitution, is passe, and the shallow egocentricity of juvenilism prevails, e.g. Barack Obama.
I think Toynbee and certainly some other astute historians explained this.
Ron Paul incidentally is one of the few legitimate thinkers in US politics; that is why he gets flamed, even on FR.
All bills should be written in language that a citizen with a high school education can easily understand.
But once again, Ron Paul to the rescue with some common sense!
Sunlight? Try UV with a chaser of chlorine.
Maybe one day, the freepers, who refer to him as a nut, will recognize they are just short bus Republicans trying to catch up with the conservatives in the party?
Don’t hold your breath waiting for THAT to happen!
...POS legislation from POS government, POS’s in the Congress and WH. Problem is this SH!T has been accumulating for too long...
...Time to go to DC, with shovels and plundgers, and flush the turds into the Potomic...
Actually, I think that Ron Paul is the "conscience" of the Republican Party, and many if not most Republicans would like to ignore that conscience because it's inconvenient.
But that's not why I like Ron Paul. It's because he's a great civics teacher. He doesn't tell you what to think, but rather expects you to do your homework.
No kidding...and think of the carbon footprint that these massive 1,000 + page bills leave once they get fired off on the Xerox machine!
Paul has WELL established himself as a nut. However he has moments of clarity, such as this one. Credit where credit is due and all that.
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