Of Proposed Laws and Reading Them

Would you trust someone who presented you with an offer that sounded too good to be true, who showed you a contract several thousand pages long, and who said that you do not need to read it because he will explain it to you? Would you trust him with your life, and your way of life? The contract involves surrendering to him your responsibility for making many of the important decisions regarding your healthcare, your use of energy, and your choice of financial products, including checking and savings accounts, loan programs, and how you choose to pay for things. And, by the way, you need to make your decision right away, because, well because he says so, the sooner the better.

Sounds like a flim-flam artist to me. That is not the way that an upstanding businessman, genuinely confident in his product, would likely do business. Makes you wonder about the promises. Will they stand up to close inspection?

That is the deal that the Obama Administration, however, is offering to the nation, proposals that reach from decisions affecting health and life itself, to the details of how we live that life (anything that uses energy), and how we use and manage our own financial resources to pay for things of daily life and prepare of the future. Unfortunately, you do not get to decide whether you take that deal. Your congressman and senators will decide for you.

Here is a thought. Since they represent us, why not insist that the congressmen and senators read the proposals before they vote on them? I worked on Capitol Hill for twenty years, and I can tell you that few congressmen and senators read most of the laws they voted on, and some laws were never read by any of them. For months, now, the Republicans have challenged anyone in the House of Representatives or the Senate to admit to having read the $700+ billion stimulus law passed earlier this year, passed in a hurry because the President and congressional leadership said that it had to be passed in a hurry. No one has come forward.

It does not require a lot of words to make theft illegal. But it takes a lot of words for the government to decide when you get an operation and under what terms, to come up with a fee that someone (you) will have to pay for any appliance that uses energy, or for the government to design your checking account and instruct bankers what they must and must not tell you about the government-designed accounts.

Most people are convinced today that our tax laws have become too complicated. The tax laws got that way when taxes were passed not just to pay for the government but rather were used by smart people in Washington to guide the behavior of people throughout the country, to affect how we invest, what we buy, and to shift wealth from one group of people to another group.

So, how about before our congressmen and senators surrender our control over our lives and health, control over how we use and pay for energy, control over the features of our bank accounts, we insist that they personally read the proposals? I know what the response will be from legislators and their staff. Remember, I used to work there. They will say that most of that language is technical stuff, details, fine print. They are mostly right, and I think that this may be the point. If the laws have become so complicated, requiring hundreds of pages of fine print and details, maybe something is wrong. Maybe the government is trying to do too much.