Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer gave an unintended glimpse into why health care reform, along with all the other massive spending bills, is being pushed through with little time for reflection or even for reading the entire piece of legislation (From CNSNews):
If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes.
In fact, Rep. Hoyer laughed at the idea of a pledge for Congressmen to read any health-care bill in its entirety and require that the bill has been made public in its entirety for three days. Staff and aides, you see, read the bills in their entirety and discuss it with their bosses, so why make the people actually voting on the bill responsible for knowing the contents of legislation? Why show the American people what they’ll be forced to do?
Maybe the reason is something approaching legislative responsibility, Rep. Hoyer? Maybe because we elect legislators to actually know what the hell they’re voting on before they ram it down the American people’s throats? Maybe because we have a reasonable expectation that our Representatives, whether or not we agree with their political philosophy, aren’t ignorant of what will become the law of the land?
The fact that the number two Democrat in the House of Representatives thinks reading the entire bill is counter-productive frankly scares me. No, I don’t want to put my trust that an staff member will adequately explain a thousand-plus pages to an obviously uncaring politician. I didn’t vote for an aide. I voted for the Congressman to take informed responsibility for their decisions, and they should at least have the common courtesy to read the whole bill before voting along party lines anyway.
This should only confirm suspicions that no one read the massive stimulus package, no one read the massive omnibus spending bill, and no one read the massive cap-and-trade bill, especially after 300 pages were tacked on at 3 am before the vote. I don’t know how anyone can continue to have faith in the government when it seems abundantly clear that those in both parties don’t know or care what they’re doing to the country. You might want to think about that when you consider handing the reins of health care over to the people who at best should be called “irresponsible.”
Wellsy's World 
Posted on July 9, 2009
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