Politico.com is having a public poll to help determine questions to be asked of candidates in tomorrow's Republican Presidential Candidate Debate. I just cast my vote for the question:

Do you believe that Congress should have to read the bills they pass? In other words, do you support adoption of the "Read the Bills Act"?

There are many important issues but, frankly, none of them matter if we don't get some way of forcing politicians to actually read, understand, and acknowledge the full contents of bills for which they vote. At present, Congress camouflages bills with euphemistic, patriotic-sounding names that are completely irrelevant to the contents and impact. But the name is just about all most Congressmen know about a bill before they vote on it.

Whether your issue is Iraq, torture, WMDs, global warming, or whatever you should understand that as long as Congress keeps score by how many bills they pass, and that in most cases they have absolutely no clue what's actually in the bills on which they vote, your issue is never, ever going to be treated in the open fashion any and every serious issue deserves.

If you're interested, go to Politico.com and cast your vote for the questions you think are important, or submit one of your own.

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Terry Frazier at 3:28 PM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: Policy & Regulation

Friday, April 27, 2007

Read The Bills

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There are 160 pages of Congressional bills listed at WashingtonWatch.com. 160 pages, at ~20 bills per page.

Keeping up with legislation, cyberstyle

WashingtonWatch is a site that summarizes legislation pending before Congress, and allows user comments on each piece of legislation. The site is nice and clean, and the explanations proposed laws are clear and understandable.

The home page lists all the legislation currently pending, but grouped by tabs for categories such as: Most Popular, Newest, Greatest Cost, and Greatest Savings. If you click on a proposed law it will take you to a page where you can leave a comment about the legislation. Also, users can edit the section that describes why the legislation should or shouldn't be passed. Sort of like Wikidpedia, except probably with more controversy as the site becomes more popular.

What’s wrong with this picture? This is a great site, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that we don’t need 635 largely self-serving, ego-centric, half-witted politicians voting on 3,000+ ways to pick our pockets and screw up our lives. Because you know - you just know – they haven’t actually read any of them.

The only bill any of these clowns should be voting for right now is this one – Read The Bills Act. Of course, the Law of Unintended Consequences says even this bill will make things worse. Hat tip to Ernie.

Posted by:

Terry Frazier at 11:21 PM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: Policy & Regulation

Friday, April 20, 2007

Signing Up for the DEA

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Today I registered for the DEA. I bought some cold medicine. Thanks to the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005 I got to show ID and register for the DEA to purchase one $5 package of Tylenol Cold & Sinus.

NPR proclaims this law a fabulous success. In an article titled "Mexican 'Ice' Replaces Home-Cooked Meth in U.S." NPR says:

The nation's war on drugs has at least one successful battle: State and federal laws limiting access to cold medicines containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine have dramatically curtailed small "mom and pop" meth labs.

Of course, the article notes that the home-cooked product has just been replaced with a newer, more powerful form of the drug from Mexico.

Congratulations to our politicians. We have once again assaulted the liberties of average, law-abiding citizens while simultaneously making both over-the-counter cold medicines and the drug problem worse. It seems almost inarguable to me that the more power we grant to bureaucrats the less safe and productive our lives become. The last law passed by Congress that actually improved things was in 1964. 43 years is a long, long time to go without a single useful act by our government. You'd think we would eventually figure out that less is more.

Posted by:

Terry Frazier at 6:42 PM | Permanent Link | Trackback URL |
Categories: Policy & Regulation, War on Drugs

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