It’s a laugh a minute on Capitol Hill, where folks who supposedly represent us fritter away our freedom with giddy abandon. And without a glance at the fine print.
Well, it’s all fine print when you’ve got a cap-and-trade bill 900-plus pages long. This bill would tax businesses that need to produce more “greenhouse gases” than the new law would allow according to a formula so congested that, well, it takes 932 pages to spell it out. If the bill passes, it’s another punch to the gut of the American economy.
For a while, it seemed that Republicans on the energy committee might obstruct things, might insist that the bill be read. Aloud!
So the Democrats hired a speed reader. No reading was ever demanded. But since the guy had been hired, he was asked to zip through just a bit of the bill. His incredible machine-gun delivery cracked everybody up.
Well, DownsizeDC.org isn’t laughing. The activist group notes that the cap-capitalism bill was rushed through committee so fast that it could not possibly have been read, publicly or privately.
The group supports a Read the Bills Act to require every bill to be read in full before the House and Senate . . . and require all lawmakers to sign an affidavit affirming that they have read any bill they vote on. A sensible rule, long overdue. Seriously.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.