Friday, February 13, 2009

Outrageous! House Passed Bill No One Had Read!


The House passed the so-called stimulus bill this morning.
What is outrageous is that the compromise bill became available for members to read at 11PM last night and the vote was rushed because Nancy Pelosi had to catch a plane for a nine-day trip to Europe this evening so that she would not miss an awards dinner!
(I smell something rotten in Denmark!).

The bill was 1000 pages long, and eight inches thick, and We the People had been promised that it would be posted for a reasonable amount of time so that everyone would know what was in it.

This bill was largest spending bill in the history of the world.
The Obama administration took a leaf from the pages of the Bush administration's handling of the Patriot Act, and used fear tactics to get it passed quickly.
That is all outrageous enough, but today it is our representatives that acted irresponsibly.
How can they know that this is a good bill if they haven't read it?
It does not matter if your Congress Critters were for or against this spending plan.
They owed it to themselves and to their constituents to READ it before they vote.
They should have voted against the rules for this vote, and they should have turned down the bill until it was made available for a reasonable time.

A responsible Congress Critter would have abstained at the very least, and voted it down at best.
When will We the People call them to account?
We should have learned after the Patriot Act, and if we are particularly dense, we should have learned from the Monster Bailout with the Missing Money that was passed last fall.

Even if you believe that the government should take action-- and I don't--this does not mean that any action is as good as any other.
Hurrying down the rocky road to disaster is a foolish move, no matter how often taken out of panic. Our representatives owe it to themselves, and to us, to READ the bills they vote on in order to prevent panic moves that could cause more problems than they solve.

So much for accountability and transparency. Our children and their children will be paying for this bill, and the accountants for the Federal Government are saying this might do more harm than good.

Arrrgh! Tar and feathers is too good for these clowns we have elected!
But I am afraid that telephone calls will have to do.
Call your representatives to account to you. You are their boss.

We've got a government out of control.
It's time to take our country back!


7 comments:

Amie said...

Isn't that infuriating!? We pay these people how much a year to do what?

Melora said...

I agree!

ChristineMM said...

I wonder how people are doing with their lists of what they thought this new administration would do versus reality.

Sadly when I try to have meaningful discussion about this bill I am told, "Bush passed a junk bill before he left office that stunk too."

Where is the logic in people's reasoning when they can't even discuss a current bill and just want to put blame on others and past actions of the other party?

Elisheva Hannah Levin said...

Amie, I am glad to know that I am not the only person with the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Melora, thanks.

Christine, I don't understand those people. Yes, the Bush administration did some very bad things, but this makes what the Obama Admin and Congress just did OK? It's a very strange sort of partisan moral compass.

  said...

Political Systems

Anonymous said...

If you guys knew anything about politics you would know that the bill was read by congress and many committees, and the presidents administration was present when the bill was made.

do your research before you post stuff like this.

Elisheva Hannah Levin said...

Anonymous, I published your comment in order to point out that it is our elected representatives in Congress, not their staffers or committees who are morally responsible for knowing what is in a bill that they vote on.

I know what happens in politics. And I think it sucks, frankly, and I am not dissuaded because the irresponsible party happens to be D or R. e.g. that this happened with the Patriot act does not make it any more acceptable that it has happened again with the so-called stimulus.

The system as a whole needs to be reformed, so that bills are short and clear, and to the point. Added wording to implement agendas that the current party-in-power wishes to disguise. That leads to taxation without representation, since there is no debate or discussion, and the people have no chance to contact their representatives.

Our country was founded on the premise that there should be no taxation without representation.

This politics as usual is a far cry from the change we were promised by the Obama administration, and the anger of a significant minority of voters is rising, as evidenced by Santelli's outburst and the response.