Has anyone here actually read the entire stimulus bill?

[nevergiveup]

If so, how long did it take you? I am hearing all this crap about Republicans not having time to read the bill and know I am going to be confronted with this as work.

[Clio the Leo]

1. 1. The have staff to do that 2. they never read anything anyway and...

3. that's no excuse.

I dont even understand WHY they think that's a good talking point. "Yes, I'm a member of the GOP, I work in Congress and I'm not doing my job." That's what they sound like to me.

[liberal N proud]

5. I had my staff read it

LOL, I don't even have a staff.

[mikekohr]

23. It's 252 pages long,

mike kohr

[eleny]

2. if they havent read it then how come they keep saying what's in it - pork?

[Raine]

8. That's what I've wondered too

so which is it, did they read or didn't they ... they're such liars.

[LiberalFighter]

24. A woman made that comment at our Saturday meeting.

How do they know what's in it if they didn't get a chance to read it?

[Hello_Kitty]

3. I have.

It's several hundred pages but a lot of it is redundant legislative-ese that you can skim over. The real meat of the bill is probably contained in about 1/4 of it. http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/finalstim.pdf

[MercutioATC]

4. There was less than 24 hours between final version and vote.

Evelyn Wood might have been able to do it, but Dems simply didn't allow adequate time to read the whole thing.

[chill_wind]

6. There's an EASY version all decoded. Two charts.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5053289

[Median Democrat]

7. Compare Republican Reaction to Clinton's 1993 Stimulus - Deja Vu Re Predictions of Failure

The fact of the matter is that I doubt the Republicans really read the bill, except to find isolated cultural war type issues to make hay about. Otherwise, there result and predictions of economic disaster were predetermined. Look back at 1993 when no Republican voted in support of Bill Clinton's stimulus bill, decried it as waste, and predicted that it would fail. Well, we know how that all turned out.

<>

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

9. IT'S A COOKBOOK!!!

(Twilite Zone joke. If you don't get it ask an old person.)

[SpookyCat]

15. LOL!

[firedupdem]

10. They never read anything. Their staff supposedly reads the

bills....the staff really reads the summary like the rest of us.

[LiberalFighter]

25. Yep. At best they will have more than one staff member assigned to different sections to read.

[Clio the Leo]

11. and did you hear about this supposed "secret" meeting....

.... Nancy and Barney had? A Wingnut friend of mine (who I adore but obviously disagree with) is all in an uproar that Nancy and Barney supposedly had a "secret" meeting Friday night (she thinks) but I cant find ANY mention of it via Google or even FreeRepublic. She said she thought she read it on Drudge but I cant find it there either.

I hate to tell her that Congressmen have secret meetings all the time. They kick the press out and close the doors of the hearing rooms on a regular basis and some of them .... GASP! ..... go out to eat together!!!

[phleshdef]

12. Um, somewhere around 90%+ of it was the same at passing as it was a week or more before its passing.

And if the Republicans wanted to get a grasp on the changes, they had apt time to do so. But they themselves chose not to take an active role in the bill and instead decided to focus on opposing it. Tell anyone bringing this up to you to face up to the fact that they had ample time to not only read it but also be part of it and they denied themselves any of those luxuries by enamouring themselves in obstructionism instead.

[backscatter712]

13. Oldest trick in the Rethug book.

The Rethugs throw a hissy fit, wave the bill around, showing you how thick it is, and slam it on the table, screeching "NOBODY'S READ IT!!!"

Bullshit.

See, our Congresscritters and Senators have these people called "staff", who happen to be trained lawyers and experts, who do that sort of grunt work. Each Congressman has about a dozen people who pore through the legislation, figure out the amendments, figure out what everything does, and write up some Cliffs Notes for the Congresscritter. When Congresscritter wants his own amendment written, his staff does the heavy lifting and writes the actual chapters and verse.

I guess freepers are too dumb to understand things like this.

[Still Sensible]

19. Yeah, well to the republicans I say

We pay you idiots $174,000 a year to read the fucking bills you vote on! What part of your job description don't you understand?

[backscatter712]

20. Considering the sheer volume of legislation and other things they go through,

They literally don't have the time to pore through thousand-page tomes of legislation. The competent ones pore through some of it, and write a lot of it, but ultimately, it's up to the staffers to make sure the workload is handled.

Of course, nobody on this board ever accused the Republicans of being competent...

[Still Sensible]

21. Okay, I'll rephrase

we pay you $174,000 a year to know what is in the bills you vote on and we pay your staff to help you do the job.

Better?

[backscatter712]

22. Yeah, sounds good to me.

Too bad so many of those dumbfucks aren't held to professional standards while serving...

[Bad Thoughts]

14. We could test republicans on the contents of past bills

And if they fail to recall 70% of the contents of those bills, we should automatically repeal them.

[4lbs]

16. All these whiny Republicans complaining about not having enough time to read the bill

need to be reminded of the Patriot Act.

I seem to recall that thing being 50% to twice as large as this one and the Democrats in Congress weren't given much time, if at all, to read that thing before being forced to vote on it.

[gmudem]

17. It's not as if this is some brand new bill.

They have been working on the same basic legislation for 2 or 3 weeks now, and the final legislation was about 90% similar to the original legislation I believe, so there wasn't a lot of different stuff in there. It's a bogus and nonsensical talking point, ie standard GOP fare.

[Ian David]

18. I am concerned about the provisions for "flesh-eating (classified)"

New Program Will Defend Against Flesh-Eating (Classified)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8KeeDqE5Xc