I get why you would think this – a Congressperson’s job is to craft legislation, so the least we could do is expect that they read the things they’re most responsible for. However, a 12-year old could read a bill. A speed reader could (sort of) read a bill. Hell, Glenn Beck could sit down and read a bill, too, if he wanted to (although I guarantee you he never has – does this disqualify him from comment?). But in none of these three cases does “reading” the bill equate to understanding a bill. In a perfect world, every Congressperson would be an expert on everything and reading the bill would mean understanding the bill. But honestly, modern legislation is so complex that I don’t think any person could be an expert on everything contained in even a single bill. That’s why members of Congress have staffs (staves??), comprised of generally intelligent people – with at best a smattering of experts in certain subject matters – who are skilled at researching the contents of a bill and summarizing it for said Congresspeople.
In short, I’d rather a Congressperson read and understand a 10 page executive summary of a bill than waste many, many hours reading a 1000 page bill and understanding only a little and retaining even less. Forcing them to read every page just seems like a pointless exercise whose sole function is to satisfy our demand that, well doggoneit, they should read every bill.
To the OP: many of the questions are just silly, no better than “Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?” However, there are a few that are worthy of further discussion, perhaps, but not in the omnibus format that you have chosen to go with. Would you care to select two or three and start a different thread, if you’re genuinely interested in answers? I promise that I’d be able to refrain from ad hominem attacks on Beck, and I’d even be willing to tut-tut at those who can’t.
ETA: I notice that you (magellan01) said that Congresspeople should only have to read “major” bills. Why the limiter? And who decides what is a major bill or not?
I agree completely. As I said earlier–the summary is not only a better way to understand a bill–but it can also contain expert analysis not available from reading the text of the bill (such as statistics on its probable effect)–so that a congressperson will get a BETTER understanding of the bill by reading an expert summary than from reading the text of the bill on its own.
Plus, I’d rather have my congressperson read 10 pages and spend the time she would have spent reading the other 990 pages THINKING about the bill, making it better, or working to build consensus that will get it enacted. That’s the important part.
How about we require voters to read every bill that their congresspersons have voted on before they can be considered informed enough to vote for their re-election? Doesn’t that make sense?
Here’s a pretty good summary of the amount of pages in modern legislation (if not as well-sourced as we might like):
I guess opinions may vary as to whether it’s reasonable to expect a Congressperson to read 7000 pages per year (or per session? The article isn’t really clear.) The pages of a bill aren’t packed with words the way the pages of a novel are, so I would probably contend that it’s possible for every member of Congress to read every word of every bill. I just think it’s a pretty poor use of their time; they should instead be doing stuff that ONLY they can do, and trust most of the reading to their staffmembers.
So, I found the time to watch the entire interview. Nothing in it was any different than what I saw before. I repeat. The fact that she’s been reading bills for 20 years says nothing about her sincerity which happens to be exactly what was being questioned. She had her chance to demonstrate where the bill said what she implied it said and she failed. What she claims it says is worst case scenario. Do you think worst case scenario is the intent? I did see the part where Jon pointed out that Reagen the GOP icon issued the same warnings in the early 60s and NOTHING of what he predicted came to pass. Should we consider that little nugget?
I saw the part where she claimed Obama’s budget would mean seniors would be deprived of hip replacements and heart surgery and some such nonsense. That crap is obviously unrealistic fear mongering with intent. When Jon asked her for evidence she insisted she had some but failed to produce any.
I saw her counter proposal that Jon showed to be a mathematic joke .
I have no problem with a sincere fact based conservative argument. I am also concerned about the finances of such a vast undertaking. What I want is people who are sincerely trying to make things better and solve problems rather than fear mongering political shills like Betsy.
The part where I think Jon went wrong was in being polite and giving her the benefit of the doubt about being sincere. Maybe that’s a good choice for getting others on his program but it seemed painfully obvious to me she isn’t.
Really? So if someone changes a phrase on page 43 and adds the word “not” to a statement says that they are going to do something, they don’t need to re-read the bill to see how that minor change affects the rest of it? Nah, it would be stupid for them to do that.
I’ll respond to some of your other misconceptions at a later time. In the meantime, I’ll simply point out that your ad hominem response shows that you can’t refute the questions, nor can you even answer them. You can simply piss and moan because Beck is correct in asking the questions in the first place.
Neither of those pieces say that ACORN received billions of dollars. They both say (and use the same source at something called the “Capitol Research Center”) that ACORN, as well as similar groups (non-profit community development type groups) are eligible to apply for federal funds. I’m sure you see that as nefarious in and of itself, but if you’re honest you’ll also admit that “being eligible to apply for” is a far cry from Beck’s claim that the stimulus package funneled (n.b. the tense, as in it has already happened) billions of dollars to ACORN. In order for the claim to be true, it has to (a) have already happened, which I don’t think is the case but feel free to correct me; (b) ACORN must have outcompeted every single other non-profit neighborhood group, which again I doubt but feel free to offer evidence; and (c) would represent an increase in ACORN’s funds from $53 million over 15 years (as per your cites) to a hundred times that amount in about half a year. I’m pretty sure we’d have heard all sorts of stories about gold-plated Cadillacs romping through the ghetto, were this true.
Dan, that was a list of questions. Questions, not statements of fact. Beck’s entire presentation of them was to get people to research and answer the questions for themselves, not to give them pat answers to the questions.
You can agree with Beck, you can disagree with him. Hell, I disagree with a lot of what he says. But one thing about him - he thinks, and he makes others think.
Did you read your links? Protip: Don’t refute something with a link that doesn’t say something that bolsters your argument.
Yes it would. If you add a not, which is a stupid thing to add, you would reverse the meaning of the section. Not the other 900 pages of the bill. Seriously, read a bill, you seem to not understand how they work.
Translation: You’re unable to mount even the lazy and worthless defense you’ve mounted thusfar.
I answered them all. Reread my post. If I’m pissing and moaning it’s because a lightweight like Beck has so many followers who can’t think for themselves and imagine his schoolyard musings are somehow profound. I’m pissing and moaning because otherwise intelligent adults are letting that fool tell them how to think and it’s repulsive how lazy and stupid it makes them.
That’s just the bills that pass. Congresspeople would have to read at least 2-4 times that much to have read all the bills they vote on, yea or nay. So it’s even more difficult for congressmen to understand every bill they vote on (as they should) without the aid of summaries.
Surely those arguing congresspeople should read bills before they vote will agree that it’s as important to make an educated decision to reject a bill as it is to make an educated decision to approve a bill.
In other words, they’d agree that the following statement is just reprehensible:
Right. They have staffers and lawyers to write and read the bills. Lawmakers read the Summation, and then any section that may come before their Committee or under particular scrutiny. That’s why they have staffers and why there are Committees of specialists.
There is no need to them to read the whole bill. Just like your MD reads the material sent out with the drugs, plus articles in the Medical Journals. He doesn’t read the lab test results or try to duplicate them. He doesn’t read the chemical formula.
Agreed. I’m sure Fred Phelps occasionally has pancakes for breakfast, but I’m not going to respect him or his dumb-ass views any more because he once-in-a-while does something not-crazy.
You might be interested to know that an old friend of mine defended Beck when I criticized him on facebook so I made the promise to watch a weeks worth of shows and report back to him. I’ve watched two so far. I understand the format of reasonable questions in unreasonable times and question boldly. To be fair, he does say more than once “don’t believe me, check it out for yourself” but even though he frames it as a question and says things like " Is this really what it appears to be, I’m not sure I hope I’m mistaken" he is making a strong push toward a conclusion especially by the guests he brings on. The first show I watched his guests were Limbaugh and Rove. You can imagine my reaction.
I have a real problem with the nature of some of his questions. For example, the one about Acorn seems to be based in a falsehood. I’ll let you know more after I’ve watched his shows. Watching the clips he uses to frame a question does he give a date and place so we can hear it in context?
A conservative friend of mine said today he stopped watching Beck because he found him to be an alarmist who wasn’t really helping the situation. That’s my feelings about his questions. I’ll be more specific about the shows I watch.