Democrat Sen. Tom Carper: Read the bill? Are you kidding me!
Watch this (via Stephen Gutowski):
CNS has the related story:
Sen. Thomas Carper (D.-Del.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, told CNSNews.com that he does not “expect” to read the actual legislative language of the committee’s health care bill because it is “confusing” and that anyone who claims they are going to read it and understand it is fooling people.
“I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life,” Carper told CNSNews.com.
Carper described the type of language the actual text of the bill would finally be drafted in as “arcane,” “confusing,” “hard stuff to understand,” and “incomprehensible.” He likened it to the “gibberish” used in credit card disclosure forms.
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Categories: Health care
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Then please tell me, Mr. Senator, what on God’s green earth you are doing making laws that you refuse to read — let alone make clear.
Here’s an idea: maybe write all legislation in, oh, I don’t know, how about ENGLISH????
This dc bunch only reads bills that give them a pay raise or bills that see they get millions to ‘run’ their offices. They DO NOT give a flying flit what the citizens want. They just give money to the people who see to it they get re-elected. They just want power, period!
L
Post it online for 72 hours before you vote – you can bet your arse that we’ll read it – every word.
I wrote a lengthy email to Senator Carper’s office begging for fiscal sanity a few months ago and got a response where the last sentence wasn’t even finished. Not saying that it was him writing it, but these guys are so darned half-baked it’s sad. It’s not even worth trying for these guys- they’re not writing the bills, and they won’t read them.
I actually ran into him at the gym and the grocery store, he’s a nice guy. He’s just not programmed to think independently.
To me this has been one of the more astonishing developments this year. Don’t these fools understand the whole point of having a rule of law is so people can understand it???
If they do not understand it, how in the Hell do they expect us to understand it? Just trust them to tell us what it means even though they’re telling us they don’t know?
An incomprehensible “rule of law” is exactly the same thing as tyranny. It means whatever the guy with the gun pointed at your head says it means.
“Gibberish”. Is that an attack on Robert Gibbs?
2+2=5
What’s not to understand, prole?
Superbly stated!!
Isn’t that his job? Doesn’t this man realize what a fool he’s made of himself? The phrase “legislative language” in layman’s terms means “blank check”, Senator Idiot. You’re either a fool or a liar. I don’t know which is worse.
Interpretation:
“I am stupid, and the Republicans are liars.”
He was sent to Washington, why? Yeah!
He comes from a long line of complainers, and/or fishermen, hence the surname, “Carper.”
Maybe, someday down the road, the electorate will insist on basic IQ, and lie detector tests before choosing their representation. Or, congress can simply choose to write bills in layman’s terms. Uh, no. That’s too easy a solution, and would make it too difficult for the thieves to steal from the pot of taxpayer funds.
Liberal politics are just like an ersatz religion: a matter of faith.
Liberals like Carper take it as as article of faith that what they’re doing is an a priori good, and accept as an equal article of faith that no one can have a good-faith disagreement with them; so whatever they’re trying to foist on the American People doesn’t require any kind of examination.
You gotta believe! Only then can you know the blessings of leftist “salvation.”
Sort of reminds me of Barbie’s “Math is hard, let’s go shopping!” comment.
What an idiot. But there are even stupider Senators and Reps…
Read – he probably can’t even color inside the lines.
When the ancient Romans were running low on slaves, they would post new laws on poles and walls so high up that no one could read them. The Romans could then arrest and enslave just about anyone they wanted for violating the new laws. Kind of what’s happening here isn’t it?
“Whut we have heah…. is a fail-eah to communicate.”
How can they claim that the conservatives are spreading lies about healthcare when no one in congress can decipher what the bill says.
It’s time for some “truth in lending” changes and write legislation in simple, easy to read, English. Maybe some pictures?
They figured out a way to make it easy for the liberals to read a ballot in Broward County Florida, maybe they can simplify the bills so that even our congressmen and women can understand them?
No-one is reading the bills, but you can bet they read, in full, any amendment to any bill, proposed by a republican. In truth, bills aren’t that important. What’s important is “how do I profit from this bill?”.
And we wonder why we have a litigious society. Our founders crafted a whole government is pretty straight forward language that is being reword by activist judeges now. What do you tink the judges and bereaucrats will do with language you cn’t understand?
Simply just plain stupidity on the part of the legislators in the Congress. And they are supposedly our best and brightest. Hogwash!
I need to proof read better.
Roland said: An incomprehensible “rule of law” is exactly the same thing as tyranny. It means whatever the guy with the gun pointed at your head says it means.
PRICELESS…
Plain english, please.
Otherwise it’s just supporting yet another group of lawyers. And draining US resources on activities that produce nothing.
What I would like to see , is someone shove something in this bill, that would state, that as soon as the president signs it, He, the vp, and everyone that signs it resigns. asap. they give up their penisons and if they try and recall the bill it would be a class A felony.Plus they agree that they could not challenge the bill in court.
excuse me, should have said , everyone that votes for the bill
Plain english in Hyannis is not the same as plain english in Topeka.
On October 2nd, 2009 at 2:41 pm, BruceB said:
Whew, now THAT is a Freudian petticoat.
If I had made a statement like that to my boss or in an interview where he could hear it, I would have been out of a job by the end of the day. Time to treat these elitists like they are just like us. If they aren’t willing to do the work they are hired to do, replace them.
“Admiral, we’re unable to ascertain the accuracy of your missile due to the fact that it blows up immediately after launch.”
Ahh! I understand.
He’s not reading it because it confuses him to a very great degree (”reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life”). Therefore, no one can read it without being confused. So, if the Republicans read it and speak against it, they’re just fooling people.
I see now! The democrats write laws with the intent to confuse people and if the Republicans read them, any dissent is just a lie.
Senator Carper, are you retarded?
This entire piece of bovine excrement masquerading as “law” flies in the face of a long held legal dictum: ignorance of the law is no defense. If the freaking morons that wrote this trash can’t understand it, then how are WE supposed to understand it? Could that be a credible defense in court?
Hangfire, you just have “envy.”
The truly scary thing is that none of the bureaucrats tasked with implementing the law ever seems to have a problem. How is that possible if it is that incomprehensible? And how can lawmakers craft a law if they do not understand their own bill? Answer: They can’t. They pontificate about what they want to staffers and
expectassume that it was done “properly”. In other words, lobbyists, staffers, and other unelected lawyers are really running the Congress.In the case of this healthcare fraud, it was already substantially written by the lobbyists and staffers months ago without any input from the rank and file members of Congress.
Wait a minute. Is he saying that the bills are incomprehensible and therefore should NOT be voted on? Or, is he actually saying, and I can hardly believe this, that the bill is too complicated to understand, so he’s not going to read it and STILL WILL VOTE FOR IT??
ThunderHawkk, you have to get past that pesky proclivity of asking tough questions.
You should have asked, “Senator, since you don’t plan on reading the bill, do like Tampa Bay or Washington in this Sunday’s game?”
I actually don’t mind him saying this as long as he intends to vote NAY.
If I can’t understand it or I’m confused by it, I will vote against it.
Makes sense to me.
I mean, after I’m elected President of the United States in 2012, do I really have to read the whole bill to keep my promise to veto anything I see that’s unconstitutional? I can simply stop at the first violation, slap it with a VETO stamp, and move on – which is exactly what I plan to do once in office.
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
Rahm Emanuel: “Here, let me translate it for you!” (pulls out shiv)
GRRR …
If it can be so incomprehensible, why not stop writing stuff that’s incomprehensible?
Shouldn’t the whole point of it be for it to be comprehensible?
What an ID10T!
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
New campaign slogan:
Re-elect No One 2010.
These guys are writing the opposition ads for next year. Just cut-n-paste the sound bites from youtube.
Dimple monkey twice the pudding octopi for tango man?
Ha ha.
This guy isn’t even qualified to own a credit card.
He certainly shouldn’t be a member of Congress.
Maybe we should all get on board and try to get the “Read The Bills Act” passed.
What ever happened to “ignorance of the law is no excuse?” If the legislature passes a bill it is ignorant of, how can it stand up in court? And why would citizens be obligated to follow it? Just asking.
Then you Mr Carper (I refuse to call someone Senator who can’t read a Senate Bill) are superfluous to the process and aren’t needed. You and those of your ilk should go the way of the DoDo bird. Where are these great minds that wrote the bill? Bring those Wizards of Oz out of the shadows and let them explain it. This country was founded by men who put their life and fortunes on the line by penning the Declaration of Independence with bold signatures for all to see. If this bill is so great then let its writers be similarly visible so we can query them on this initiative that will add serious tax burdens to the citizens of the country.
It should be a requirement that all bills must be written in language that is understandable by the “common man”. That way judges would be limited in their ability to legistlate from the bench and the morons that are the “ruling elite” would know what is in the bill. Anyone with me on this?
Gosh. What a sense of deja vu! I swear I saw this entire exchange in a movie once! The characters were a little different though. The movie version had a young girl asking the questions and big giant head yelling at her and her companions to ignore the man behind the curtain!
“Oh, please Mr. Wizard! Can’t I have a brain?”
But then we would have no use for that special class of elite politicians and lawyers who claim that only they are qualified to be legislators. Except Sen. Carper let the cat out of the bag by admitting that even they don’t understand what’s in the bill.
They purposely make language in the bills impossible to comprehend. That accomplishes two things. It makes it impossible for the public to know what’s in the bill before it passes, and it allows the progressive bureaucrats, who implement the bill, to interpret the language as liberally as they choose. They can make the language mean whatever they want it to mean.
The best way to make sure bills are understandable is to first, stop voting for lawyers; and second, get a pledge from all candidates that they will absolutely vote against any bill that cannot be read or that is “arcane,” “confusing,” “hard stuff to understand,” or “incomprehensible.”
I have never understood why anyone would watch this annoying broad, I thought it was a “chick” thing… now I think it is a “stupid” thing.
I’m going to take a chance and go against the flow here. Please stick with me.
I don’t necessarily disagree with this guy saying that the legislation is incomprehensible. It probably is.
Have you looked at the bills they write in Congress? They’re usually written with language kind of like this:
And so forth, ad nauseum. We’re not just talking about lawyerese here (which is bad enough). No, it’s like taking the output of a shredder and trying to understand that it’s the Next Great American Novel. No one can read such language and make sense of it.
And I think this is deliberate. No one is supposed to understand it except those that wrote it. If our congressional representatives were honest, they would never vote for such fractured bills. They know they don’t understand it, and if they can’t understand a bill because the authors deliberately intended that it be incomprehensible, then they darn well shouldn’t be voting “Yes” for it.
IMHO, not only do we need a “Read the Bill” law, we also need a “Plain Language” law. Bills which require cutting and pasting to see what the final language will look like should be illegal. Instead, the bills should include all the affected language, even if it duplicates some that’s already part of existing law.
Umm … Isn’t that what I just said?
Just sayin’
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
So now Tom Carper is an “annoying broad”.
Wow.
Annoying, yes. Broad? Come on. Who would waste eye time on that!
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
Carper wants to know why anyone would insist on reading language he considers incomprehensible as if that were an outrageous request but that piece of filth has no qualms at all about signing legislation he’s never read and admits he can’t understand.
Which is the point of the post and all the comments …
Piece of filth indeed, though. You really smacked it out with that one!
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
Thanks AG, lmao at that.
Well said Roland. Short and to the point. No extra gibberish and a very clear message. Maybe you should be the next “law writing czar”?
I see his point…his boss, The Nancy, has told him how to vote. There is NO reason to read the thing. Soon we can all stay home and watch TV, The Nancy will provide for all…..good democrats
Another point…it is purposefully written incomprehensible…so that after it is passed it can be said to support any wacky liberal Idea…their might even be a clause, that “could” be said to support that The Obama must be president for life if certain incomprehensible goals were not met by some incomprehensible date.
If you, along with all of you other politicians, don’t read it, you will be removed from office. Count on it!
America is waking up to the realization that these elected folks (and especially) the lawyers are not as smart or even semi-intelligent as we have been led to believe. I USED to think that a person had to be really intelligent to get elected to high office, but I have since seen the truth. The MAJORITY of elected people are no smarter, prettier, or more educated than most Americans. Don’t believe the lie. They need to be term limited by our vote and removed from office.