He also led the charge to allow the public and lawmakers to read legislation before it is voted on.
Now, this was a big thing during the rush to vote on Obamacare. No one had read the damn thing! Politicians were voting on something they hadn't read, and had no idea what was in it.
And apparently this was not a new occurrence.
And it is extremely frightening to think we're being led by a bunch of people who can't be bothered to read the legislation they're voting on.
Another thing that is frightening is the political practice of sticking in other little laws and changes, here and there, in legislation that has nothing to do with it, so that when the overall bill passes, these other little laws and changes take place as well. That's just a joke, and it's to be hoped that some of these Tea Partiers start taking a stand on that as well.
The whole US system of government needs to be reformed, frankly. Throw all the crooks out, and anyone who votes for someone who is a demonstrated crook should ahve his vote taken away.
It's very ef-fed up.
ReplyDeleteI believe there are many reasons they do not read the legislation (or care to have us read it before the vote).
One reason might be that they would not understand what it says (or does) if they did read it. So why bother? The evidence is the numerous so-called unintended consequences that always surprises them and which they blame on compromising with the opposition.
Then again, maybe they do understand it and they allow the notion that they didn't read it spread unchecked so if something goes really really wrong, e.g., collapsing the housing markets by ignoring Fannie and Freddie, they can claim it's not their fault (Rep. Barney Frank on the O'Reilly Factor).
Another could be that they had only a small part in writing them. Legislation like the 2009 Stimulus bill which came from nothing to $787 Billion in thousands of make-work projects (that were timed to be most visible just before the 2012 election), formerly known as "pork", wasn't just pulled out of someone's hat. It was pulled out of the "Lobbyist's Wish-List Drawer" and cobbled together in about three weeks (I can see the interns and clerks scrambling around looking for "filler" material for the darn thing). Don't read it, just sign it. After all this is an emergency!
They probably don't want Americans to read these bills before they vote on them because they are tired of listening to all the corrections they will receive in the in-boxes.
While I believe all three to be true to varying degrees, I believe that the underlying purpose of any legislation is to help secure the re-election of the politicians who support it. This would include payoffs to supporters in the form of lobbyist authored legislation, earmarks, relaxed oversight (Enron), and keeping Americans dependent on them by providing unearned services (enough to keep them alive, but not enough to allow them to advance). It seems that they very rarely promote something that could be plainly seen as selfless, in the service of their constituents, and actually does some good.
Am I cynical? Sure. But I agree that probably most of the members of congress need to be replaced with people who are less married to party politics and demonstrate a closer alignment with their constituents' issues. It looks like we had a good start in this last election cycle with Tea Party activists (formerly known as the silent majority) coming out to be heard. But new blood is kind of hard to hire when incumbents can get support from the legacy media and money from anyone in or out of the country, in addition to their district or state.
If they understood the US Constitution, that would help a great deal as well.