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At Issue Info
Thursday, 16 August 2007
At Issue
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: Read The Bills

This is a Cut-N-Paste Blog, info from other sources. There are far too many bloggers out there and not a lot of great ones. So, I'll pass on what I run across I think is valuable to repeat here. -LexTitan 

 

D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h


Monday, July 30 was a busy day. The House of Representatives passed 36 bills. Assuming a 9-hour day, a bill would have been read, debated, and voted on every fifteen minutes. But that couldn't have happened, because the House also managed to pass 17 resolutions.

How could the House accomplish so much in one day? By not reading or even considering the bills and resolutions they passed.

All in all, the House passed 48 bills in the last week before the August recess, and the Senate passed 32. We normally tell you the total number of pages of legislation Congress passed, but this week, we just don't have the time to add it all up. And we don't think that is needed to prove the point: members of Congress can't possibly have time to read and understand the bills they pass.

Perhaps Congress needs to pass all these bills to keep Big Government running. But that's just the problem. If we want Big Government, we can't have truly representative government. Representation means more than just getting elected. If Congress truly represented the people, they would be reluctant to infringe on our freedoms and spend our money. They wouldn't pass 36 bills in one day. But the more responsibility we place on the federal government, the less time and attention Congress can give to any particular issue. So instead of reading and debating the bills before them, they rush to a vote. That's not accountability. That's not representation. If we want a truly representative government, we must Downsize DC. And we must pass the Read the Bills Act.

You can tell Congress that you don't want them to pass 36 bills in one day ever again. You can tell Congress to slow down. You can tell Congress to stop rubber-stamping bills. You can tell Congress you want to be represented. You can tell Congress to pass the Read the Bills Act.

Do you want to spread the word about the Read the Bills Act and promote your website at the same time? Then consider joining the Read the Bills Act Coalition. It's quick, easy, and free. Click here for details.

We welcome three new members to the Coalition this week:

The Awareness Network

FreedomActivists.net

The Original Drug Manual for Kids

Thank you for being a DC Downsizer.

James Wilson
Assistant to the President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

 

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Posted by oxfnord at 3:11 AM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, 18 September 2007 2:15 AM EDT
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