To be ready, the Democrats hired -- apparently, only temporarily -- a speed-reader onto the committee's clerk staff.

As it turned out, he wasn't needed: after days of seeing their amendments defeated, Republicans agreed Wednesday that they would not ask for the reading.

But Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), the ranking Republican, said he was curious. So, when he introduced a new amendment this afternoon, he requested that Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) have it read as a demonstration.

"The speed-reader clerk will read the bill," Waxman said, giving in.

"Now, I want him to read in a Texas accent," added Barton.

The speed-reader, who gave his name as "Douglas Wilder" (committee staff would not make him available for an interview), gamely started in a kind of speed-drawl. The room broke up.

"Let's have order!" Waxman said.

(Link)


With the way Washington ignores us and the Constitution it is not surprising that many people have and will find this recent Washington Post article upsetting if not infuriating. Maybe it is just me, but does it seem that a nine-hundred page bill might just be indicative of the problems in Washington? What I mean is that the bureaucracy has grown so much and modern day legislation encompasses so much as a result, that Washington has gotten out of the habit of reading the bills because what they right is so extensive that they don't have the time to read their own bills or find it rather boring to do so. If its not being upset at the lack of Constitutional scrutiny of a nine-hundred page bill, I also completely understand those who think a government hired speed reader is a slap in the face. Ultimately we can expect our elected officials to foist on us some atrocious bill, of which, not one jot or tittle will be Constitutional. And Washington throws another shovel full of dirt on the American dream.


JDB

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