This is why Congress needs time to actually read this package before voting on it.
Members of Congress have not read this bill. It’s over 5000 pages, arrived at 2pm today, and we are told to expect a vote on it in 2 hours.
This isn’t governance. It’s hostage-taking. https://t.co/JpBbEHHkVG
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 21, 2020
.@AOC is right.
It’s ABSURD to have a $2.5 trillion spending bill negotiated in secret and then—hours later—demand an up-or-down vote on a bill nobody has had time to read. #CongressIsBroken https://t.co/EQp8BfRBHj
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) December 21, 2020
$600 is a slap in the face to every American struggling due to the pandemic. You deserve better.
I voted against the 5,593-page spending bill that gave billions to corporate interests, the military industrial complex & other countries, leaving crumbs for you who need help most. pic.twitter.com/82F1HYF43T
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) December 22, 2020
Deficit busting bill will be 5,593 pages!
If 250 words per page, then that’s 1,398,250 words
If Congresspeople read at the American average of 300 words/min (a big assumption)
then a Congressperson might read this in 4,660 minutes or 77.68 hours!
(if no rest breaks)
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 21, 2020
When you have AOC, Tulsi Gabbard, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul all calling your bullshit “Bullshit!” You know it’s bullshit. You can take that to the bank.
Fuck, it’s a cold day in hell when Ben Shapiro agrees with AOC, but he did.
https://t.co/upfQJeqrEx pic.twitter.com/UOWRUL3x4x
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 21, 2020
I can support this bipartisan effort to stop this bullshit bill.
But it did pass, right? With overwhelming support, right?
Did any of these twitters actually vote against it when the roll was called?
Of the folks in the post, Gabbard, Paul, and Cruz voted against.
AOC talked a good game, but supported the bill anyway.
Yep. She called it hostage-taking, but when push came to shove she folded and paid the ransom. She handed the hostage-takers their victory (assuming she’s not one of them … which is a BIG assumption).
Apparently, “We do not negotiate with terrorists,” requires more spine than a socialist bartender from NYC possesses. This is my shocked face.
I think Rand Paul did.
It’s very simple.
$2.3 trillion, divided by 330 million Americans (assuming every man, woman, child, etc., is eligible), comes out to nearly $7,000 per person.
But our share is only $600 per eligible person? Less than 10%?
This should not be a 5,500+ page, $2.3 trillion bill. It should be two pages and ~$250 billion. (10% of the proposal, plus a generous margin to cover administrative costs.)
The question isn’t just, “Why was Congress only given two hours to read a 5,500+ page bill?”
It’s also, “Why is less than 10% of the ‘stimulus’ bill money actually going to stimulus?” and “Where is the rest going, exactly?”
I don’t often agree with AOC, but in this case she’s absolutely right: This isn’t governance.
(Also to AOC: Welcome to the sausage factory. Pay no attention to the greasy mess. Just shut up and vote how Nancy Pelosi tells you.)
The 5,593 page bill contains hundreds of millions in funding to numerous foreign countries. Pakistan gets $10 million for “gender programs” (page 1,486); Sri Lanka gets $15 million to repair a military ship (p. 1,486); Venezuela is set to receive up to $33 million for “democracy programs” (p. 1,498); and Vietnam gets $170 million to clean up pollution (p. 1,476)… and on and on.
Also included in this bill are “Horseracing Integrity and Safety” laws, laws about the “Deputy Architect of the Capitol”’s pay raise, the oh so vital “Livestock Annual Reporting Extension,” and other bullshit.
COVID–19 Regulatory Relief for Americans is found on page 5,000-something as part of Division F “Other Matters,” Title XXI.
Go ahead, read it yourself: https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/BILLS-116HR133SA-RCP-116-68.pdf
Disgusting
Few things, and I have not actually looked at this bill, but from previous experience.
1. The bill is written at 40 characters per line, and double spaced. So, about half as much text per page than you expect.
2. .The front matters, and edits to existing laws can take up hundreds, if not a thousand pages of that. It is stuff like “49 USC§ 47107 is edited from “recipient shall…” to “recipient must.”
So, reading a massive bill is not as daunting as one actually thinks. 6,000 pages is actually more like 2,000. Still a daunting task, but a lot more manageable than it is made out to be.
Next, I agree with AOC on this one. And, any congresscritter that votes for this bill without even browsing it deserves to be run out of office.
But, as noted, it was passed. Why? COVID relief! ZOMG! It must be passed….
It’s also an “omnibus” bill and one being passed in the final weeks of the current Congress. It is not unusual for such bills to contain a grab bag of (in the grand scheme of things) minor changes to laws and regulations that only effect a very specific and technical area of the law… and which the majority of Congressmen simply rely on their fellow party members on the appropriate committee to recommend a Yea or Nay vote.
For example, the bill in question contains a whole raft of laws regarding “Horseracing Integrity and Safety.” What’s it do? I don’t fucking know and I actually read it. It probably did need to be done, whatever it does, so if Congressmen So-On (D) and Soforth (R) from the Horseracing Committee both told me to vote for it… I probably would. Likewise, they’d probably both vote the way I recommended on the Minor Pedantic Changes to Some Obscure Law that had come out of my committee. Such is life in the sausage factory.
But including the much needed and very much in the public eye SARS-COVID-2 relief spending in this omnibus bill is just sloppy political optics. Speaker Pelosi used to be a whole lot more savvy about this sort of thing… Four years of Trump Derangement Syndrome has really thrown her off her game. They should have passed a “clean” COVID relief bill separate from the omnibus pork projects bill… Then they’d have their friendly media cover the COVID bill for three days before Christmas, New Years, and the Inauguration completely swallow the news cycle. Then only die-hard political wonks like me would have ever noticed the omnibus.
But by attaching COVID relief to this 5,593 page monstrosity, they bring way to much attention to how the sausage is made.
Disgusting!
I’ve got outrage fatigue and I give up.
Madison pointed out that you aren’t free if the laws are so voluminous that no one knows what they say.
That prompted me to observe, some years ago, that NO ONE knows what the laws are. No one. The old saw “ignorance of the law is no excuse” is absurd because every last one of us is ignorant of the laws. That applies to every judge, too.
How do I know this? Simple. The Federal Register runs to well over 100 pages each and every day. It contains laws (a fraction of the bulk) and regulations (a much larger fraction). How much of it applies to you? You won’t know until you read all that crap. But none of us have the time to do so.
Q.E.D.
I absolutely agree with Pkoning. The cops don’t know the laws they enforce. The laws are so complex and voluminous that the lawyers always find competing laws & then the judge gets to decide which one is actually authoritative.