We Don't Need to Read the Stinkin' Bill

There's no longer even a pretense of responsible government. In a sane world comments like these would be cause for impeachment proceedings.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it.

“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,” Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference.

Hoyer was responding to a question from CNSNews.com on whether he supported a pledge that asks members of the Congress to read the entire bill before voting on it and also make the full text of the bill available to the public for 72 hours before a vote.

In fact, Hoyer found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. “I’m laughing because a) I don’t know how long this bill is going to be, but it’s going to be a very long bill,” he said.

If the bill is too long and complex for the members to read, then perhaps it is too long and complex to be made into law, which the failure to comply with is a prosecutable offense. The creation of laws and regulations which are too voluminous and byzantine for any person to know, understand and comply with is nothing less than tyranny, leaving every citizen open to harrassment and imprisonment from government bureaucrats and officials. Kafka must be turning in his grave.

Go sign the petition at 'Just Read the Bill, Already'