"Demanding that the members of Congress take the time to know exactly what they are doing is NOT, in my opinion, a very outlandish or absurd request. It is a position that I think people of all political views can get behind. After all, who among us actually desires irresponsible government?"

- Libertarian Jason, Yearning to Breathe Free Blog

Subject: Read the Bills Act

If you want a bill passed, one easy way to score debating points is to accuse opponents of not reading it. Over the months, we've seen this tactic used on blogs and television. We've even seen it in Congress:

"Mr. Speaker, to the gentleman from Texas, he obviously didn’t read the bill. I recommend that you read the bills before you get up on the floor and make a fool of yourself." - Rep. Bill Pascrell, on the House floor speaking on behalf of the Trade and Globalization Assistance Act

The first thing that springs to mind is, does Rep. Pascrell actually read all the bills he opposes? Does he even read all the bills he supports? If the answer is no to either question, he shouldn't cast the first stone on a colleague.

H.R. 3920, the bill Rep. Pascrell is referring to, is 146 pages. It passed on Oct 31, in a week where the House passed an additional 180 pages of legislation. It may be true that the bill's opponents didn't read it, but its doubtful its supporters did either. If you oppose a bill without reading all of it, Rep. Pascrell may call you a "fool." But for a member of Congress to support a bill without reading it is worse than foolish. As our Quote of the Day says, it is irresponsible.

And the irresponsibility adds up, week after week, year after year. For instance, just last week the House passed 16 bills totaling 485 pages, and the Senate passed five bills amounting to 135 pages. It is hard to believe any of them were read before they passed. (The bills are listed in the blog version of this Dispatch.)

To combat all this irresponsibility, DownsizeDC.org drafted the Read the Bills Act (RTBA). If you are not familiar with the RTBA, you can learn more here.

And you can tell your Representative and Senators to introduce the RTBA before Congress here.

When you do, tell them that introducing the RTBA is not an outlandish or absurd request, that all we are asking is that they know exactly what they are doing. That they be responsible.

By the way, today's Quote of the Day came from a member of the Read the Bills Act Coalition. When you add your own blog or website to the Coalition, we will link to it from our blog and announce it in a Dispatch like this one. Click here to join.

Thank you for being a DC Downsizer.

James Wilson

Assistant to the President

DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

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