If you want to walk a thousand miles you do it one step at a time. If you want to eat an elephant you do it one bite at a time. The genius of big government is that Congress believes that since there are more than 500 of them they can swallow any elephant-sized problem in one bite time after time. They forget that putting two geniuses to work on one problem does not double their IQ nor guarantee that their solution will be twice as good. Not only do they forget that but they go further and assume that 100 Senators must produce legislation that is 100 times as good as what any one of them would propose, that 400 Representatives will produce a law 400 times as good as what one of them would come up with, and that the combined efforts of the House and the Senate will generate results better than what either chamber had passed in isolation.
It took Congress a couple of weeks to generate a 169 page bill spending $700 Billion in TARP (that’s $4 Billion per page) in order to save our financial system. Another $787 Billion in ARRA took up 400 pages to save our economy. They spent more time, but they have so far managed to propose a Health Care Overhaul that is over 1000 pages. Our tax code does not look like a very long novel, despite what some people might think. It actually looks like a set of encyclopedias.
I am coming to the conclusion that one of the virtues of small government is that they might be more inclined to take problems one step at a time, producing legislation that is understandable. Perhaps if we were to insist upon smaller pieces of legislation, rather than one omnibus “solution” after another our government might atrophy to a more manageable size.
How likely is it that Congress authored the legislation? They do not have the time to read the legislation. It takes infinitely more time to create legislation than it does to read it and yet the massive Stimulus Bill would have to have been written and passed in the space of a month, if we are to believe that the 1000 plus page bill was actually written by our elected representatives.
A different story is emerging about who may have authored the bill and astro turfed it to Congress. SeeApollo Alliance. If so it has likely been in the work for quite some time considering the length and detailed complexity of the Bills being rammed through Congress. – Which lends creditability to the theory that Obama is a Manchurian candidate. If such a massive plan was in the works while Obama was on the campaign trail but all the public got was a vaguely brushed picture of idealized health care- it raises more serious questions. Considering that the Apollo Alliance is a coalition of labor, business, environmental, and community leaders” it seems to put the lie to the Obama’s election promises to be transparent and to eliminate lobbyists from the process.
But you are right- taking one step at a time makes more sense and would be unlikely to engage the intense level of opposition as trying to overhaul the entire system in one swoop.
You are right that members Congress rarely if ever actually author any of the large bills that get rushed through – that is yet more evidence that most of the work done “by Congress” is really the work of outside groups and staffers while our legislators reduce themselves to nothing more than celebrities and cheerleaders advocating for the policies they favor rather than doing the work of legislation and studying issues and finding/crafting solutions to individual problems (as opposed to promoting massive “solutions” to very complex systems).
I don’t think it is the size that matters. Wasn’t it just about ten or eleven months ago when the Treasury Secretary sent a three-page term sheet to the major banks as he effectively nationalized them?
It all seems to be a continual process of legislating and giving tacit approval to any morally corrupt action and removing the natural consequences from the people who choose to act in that way, while at the same time outlawing any historical morally appropriate behavior as well as imposing sanctions and taxes on those who do behave with such a moral compass.
It is appalling that Congress and the Executive continue to pass the laws they do. I think it would be real interesting to have a five-year moratorium on any new legislation, just so we can incorporate and act upon all the legislation we currently have.
But, I am a rebel!
I was appalled when a ‘conservative’ congressman said of the original 3-page TARP bill that Congress took it and made it better. With each round of negotiations between the House and the Senate, it “got better.” Ultimately, this fellow said that there just wasn’t enough time to make it good enough for him to vote for it.
When ‘conservative’ politicians think that the TARP bill was even worth considering and that the final pork-laden product was an improved version of the original debacle, we’ve got a problem.
I agree that the length of a bill is not an absolute determining factor in how bad or dangerous it will be, but it is definitely a factor in how understandable it is. Anybody could take the time to read a three page bill, which is probably why most people were immediately against the original TARP proposal. Only those who were acclimated to Washington-think believed that the bill was getting better with each iteration. Notice though that even with that small bill (not proposed by Congress – maybe that’s why it was so short) it was proposing a massive “solution.”
Congress didn’t have anything to do with writing or not writing the three page TARP proposal if it comes from the secretary of treasury.
Does Reachupward expect the conservatives to do nothing to try to lessen the damage done by Bills that a Democrat- controlled Congress presents. The conservative didn’t vote for it any way- and he is getting paid to be a congressman- Are we now complaining if congress reads the bills and tries to find away to lessen the damage? I don’t get it! If that were the case then “the Party of No” would actually fit.
Mackenzie,
Do you honestly think that any of the changes between the original TARP bill (the three page version written by the Treasury Dept.) and the version that passed were substantial improvements?
“No” is a much better answer to that kind of government overreach than “Well, I don’t like it now, but if you grease it with this bit of pork or this little condition (which will be ignored in practice) then it would be better.”
David, thanks for coming to my rescue on that. You echoed my thoughts exactly.
Here is link to the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009(one of the house bills). HR 3200
I didn’t find it hard to understand, and frankly given the complexity of health care and how much of the economy it effects I am surprised its not longer.
*note above statement is not meant as an endorsement or denouncement of said bill*
Thanks – I really should have posted a link to that bill (the only one I know of by number). I agree that health care is complex enough to warrant a 1000 page bill, but regardless of the complexity of the system a 1000 page bill is a guarantee of unintended consequences – it’s a bad way to run a country or anything else.
In addition to HR 3200 their is H.R.676 – United States National Health Care Act or the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act And H.R.956 – HealthCARE Act of 2009
Their are a few bills I don’t have links for. The Bennett Wyden bill, or any of the senate bills. And their are several other idea’s that have floated around one place or another. Their is the Goldhill proposal Me and Reach Upward have had some good arguments on this on on his blog. Their is the idea of a Medical savings and load. This was also argued on Reach Upward’s blog. Personally I believe both the MS&L and Goldhill plans wouldn’t work but it’s nice to know people are thinking.