# Comedians in the Senate (or other high office) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 30, 2009, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedians-in-the-senate-or-other-high-office/501517 "2009-06-30T21:41:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedians-in-the-senate-or-other-high-office/501517/41 "2009-07-01T21:55:16Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > You mean the fact that we have politiicians who rush through pork bills without reading them or Franken’s problem with Tax Accountants? Politicians have NEVER read bills. That’s one of their dirty secrets. They never read the PATRIOT Act either, nor did they read Hillary’s health care plan. No one ever reads anything in Congress. They’re morons. They pay their staffs to read them and give them summaries. You think Michelle Bachmann could read and comprehend _Green Eggs and Ham_, much less the Stimulus Package? The fact that they don’t read the bills is true, and is sad, but is nothing new, and not a very interesting or arresting observation. Franken’s tax thing was small potatoes. His accountant didn’t pay income tax in some states where Franken had done gigs. It’s the kind of thing that plagues a lot of touring entertainers who have to rely on paid professionals to keep track of what taxes they’re supposed to be paying where. Franken corrected the problem as soon as he was made aware of it. It was truly nothing, and certainly not any kind of intentional fraud. Even in Minnesota at the height of the election cycle, that story barely raised a yawn. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedians-in-the-senate-or-other-high-office/501517/42 "2009-07-01T22:06:05Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > The last three Presidents have admitted to it with barely a ripple. If anything, I think it’s seen as a marginal _positive_, in that it lends a little populist credibility. Bush II admitted to pot use? I thought he had brushed off all questions of his prior substance use as “gottcha” questions and given “no comment” type answers. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedians-in-the-senate-or-other-high-office/501517/43 "2009-07-01T22:15:45Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Bush II admitted to pot use? I thought he had brushed off all questions of his prior substance use as “gottcha” questions and given “no comment” type answers. He admitted it, sort of, [after he was President](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_substance_abuse_controversy#Illegal_drugs): > [@](#): > > A conversation between Bush and an old friend, author Doug Wead, touched on the subject of use of illegal drugs. In the taped recording of the conversation, Bush explained his refusal to answer questions about whether he had used marijuana at some time in his past. “I wouldn’t answer the marijuana questions,” Bush says. “You know why? Because I don’t want some little kid doing what I tried.”[16] When Wead reminded Bush of his earlier public denial of using cocaine, Bush replied, “I haven’t denied anything.” ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedians-in-the-senate-or-other-high-office/501517/44 "2009-07-01T22:18:12Z")
Heh, “Doug Wead”. Thanks for the cite. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedians-in-the-senate-or-other-high-office/501517/45 "2009-07-01T22:51:42Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Fond as I am of Stewart I highly doubt a guy who’s discussed his own pot use on national TV can win a Congressional election. I don’t know the clips in question, but John Stewart “admits” to lots of things on his comedy show that are probably not real. Why couldn’t he just shrug it off as comedic exaggeration? He’s playing a character, not writing a tell-all. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedians-in-the-senate-or-other-high-office/501517/46 "2009-07-01T23:34:24Z")
> [@](#): > > Politicians have NEVER read bills. That’s one of their dirty secrets. I saw [an interview with John Tester (D, MT)](http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/fivethirtyeight-interviews-sen-jon.html) earlier this year where he said that he did indeed read the entire stimulus bill: > [@](#): > > JT: Well, I don’t think people understand how hard people work back here. I’m talking Senators and the staff. I mean, people log hours back here. And they work very, very hard. And the reason they do that is because that’s part of the making of the sausage. Unless you know your stuff and go forward with it, you just can’t be successful. You have to be on top of the edge, you have to be ahead of the curve, and so consequently you’re working all the time. > > And I’ll give you a prime example. Reading that 800 page bill. “Oh, what a task!” (laughs) It was nothing! You sit down and you read the bill and you understand the bill. This isn’t like reading War and Peace for God’s sakes, there’s about a paragraph on each page and you just read the bill! But you have to read the bill. And to make the assumption that nobody reads the bill, and for people to stand up and say, “I couldn’t read the bill because it was too long,” it’s a cop-out. It’s a cop-out. You can always find time to do that kind of stuff. Because it’s part of your job. Given that the only way we could possibly know whether legislators read bills is what they tell us, does anyone have a counter-cite that says that they don’t? ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedians-in-the-senate-or-other-high-office/501517/47 "2009-07-01T23:46:48Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Franken’s tax thing was small potatoes. His accountant didn’t pay income tax in some states where Franken had done gigs. It’s the kind of thing that plagues a lot of touring entertainers who have to rely on paid professionals to keep track of what taxes they’re supposed to be paying where. Franken corrected the problem as soon as he was made aware of it. It was truly nothing, and certainly not any kind of intentional fraud. Even in Minnesota at the height of the election cycle, that story barely raised a yawn. And Franken actually **made money** by fixing that. He had reported all his income, and paid taxes on it, in Minnesota, where he resided, even though some was earned in other states. The fix was to report the income and pay taxes in all those states, and file an amended Minnesota return, listing only his income in Minnesota. But because some of those states had lower tax rates than Minnesota, he ended up paying less taxes overall. (Though the increased accountant time probably used up much of that savings.) ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2009, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedians-in-the-senate-or-other-high-office/501517/48 "2009-07-01T23:51:27Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I saw [an interview with John Tester (D, MT)](http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/fivethirtyeight-interviews-sen-jon.html) earlier this year where he said that he did indeed read the entire stimulus bill: > Given that the only way we could possibly know whether legislators read bills is what they tell us, does anyone have a counter-cite that says that they don’t? Dunno if there is a clip on Youtube, but Rep Conyers is on camera in _Fahrenheit 9/11_ saying that Congresspeople often don’t read the bills, or at least don’t read them closely, before voting. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedians-in-the-senate-or-other-high-office/501517/49 "2009-07-02T00:08:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Given that the only way we could possibly know whether legislators read bills is what they tell us, does anyone have a counter-cite that says that they don’t? It seems fairly obvious, just from the size of the bills. If you total up the pages of all the bills passed by Congress in a month, there just isn’t time enough for any single person to have read all those pages – not even the fastest speed-reader in the country. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2009, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedians-in-the-senate-or-other-high-office/501517/50 "2009-07-02T00:55:36Z")
I don’t have a GQ cite, but my mom was a politiical journalist for years who personally knew several Congressmen and Senators, and she told me that it was routine for staffers to provide summaries rather than for Congress critters to actually read all the way through the bill. During the Hillary Care circus, she complained that she and other journalists covering the story were the only ones who had actually read the plan. My mom read it cover to cover, which is something I don’t envy her for. I doubt I could get through 3 or 4 pages. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comedians-in-the-senate-or-other-high-office/501517.md?page=2)