CARPER Won’t Read Text of Health Bill
Oct 2nd, 2009 by Tennessee Walker
Delaware’s very own senior U.S. Senator Tom Carper admits that he has no intention of reading the actual legislative text of the upcoming Health Care Bill. Carper calls legislative language gibberish and states that he can’t comprehend this type of language.
Carper also “questioned whether anybody could read the actual legislative text and credibly claim to have understood it.”
Gosh, obviously there is no one in the U.S. who can understand what the bills in Congress mean when they are passed. After all, if a guy like Carper who has been a politician since the 70’s can’t understand bills in legislative language, how can little folks like us have a chance???
Sen. John Cornyn points out why the actual bill itself needs to be read and not just some synopsis prepared by Senate staff. According to Cornyn ” The descriptive language the committee is working with is not good enough because things can get slipped into the legislation unseen. The conceptual language is not good enough, We’ve seen that there are side deals that have been cut, for example, with some special interest groups like the hospital association to hold them harmless from certain cuts that would impact how the CBO scores the bill or determines cost. So we need to know not only the conceptual language, we need to know the detailed legislative language, and we need to know what kind of secret deals have been cut on the side which would have an impact on how much this bill is going to cost and how it will affect health care in America.”
Carper also pooh pooh’s the idea of allowing 72 hours for public review of the bill.
“Carper said if Americans were given the chance to read the actual text of the bill he believes they would decide that it made little sense for either them—or members of Congress—to read such texts because of the difficulty in understanding them.
“I think if people had the chance to read that they’ll say you know maybe it doesn’t make much sense for either the legislators or me to read that kind of arcane language,” said Carper. “It’s just hard to decipher what it really means.”
I have news for Senator Carper. I have friends who have read the Stimulus bill and picked up the flaws in it. I have friends who given the opportunity can decipher legislative language and tell you what it means. I have no doubt that you and your staff lack the competence to do the basics of your and their jobs. But don’t assume that all of us in Delaware are so incompetent.
A friendly bit of advice from yours truly Senator Carper, You really need to back a 72 hour waiting period. With that in hand you can allow the rank and file Delaware citizens to peruse the actual legislative language and point out the pitfalls. Since you don’t have the ability to do this yourself I would be glad to give you the names of folks who can. Give me a call. I’m more than willing to help.
Carper’s interview and transcript:
Anyone care to guess how the liberals at the News Journal choose to cover for Carper on this one?????
Read the pink slip!
Read the pink slip!
Read the pink slip!
Apparently chanting read the bill didn’t work.
Viewing the video again is educational. There is an air of condescension that is palpable.
Anyone care to guess how the liberals at the News Journal choose to cover for Carper on this one?????
Anyone who covers for Carper is no liberal.
Delaware at its best, this guy is the poster child for term limits or retirement.
Mike Protack
Carper does not deserve to be continued as one of our two Senators, since he has been struck by the Peter Principle. And he doesn’t even know it, which is even worse!
Ok is there a full moon or something going on??? I find myself in agreement with Perry and noman. On top of that Perry’s Peter Principle analogy is really apt. I don’t think the Peter Principle ends with Carper.
The first time I went there I was a little supprized, but the people over at Delaware Liberal do not like Senator Carper. It makes me wonder why he keeps getting elected.
None of them understand the bill…that’s the problem. Of course, those in Washington know that a large segment of the population willingly acquiesces to having a ring slipped through their noses, like barnyard animals. They are a peculiar species known as Democratus Subservientis.
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Good point, while I don’t think Senator Carper does himself any favors with his statements about not reading the bill, he does do the American public a big favor by pointing out how screwed up our legislation has become. Unfortunatly our legislators, like Senator Carper, all to often decide that since the legislation is to complex and crazy to read and understand they should simply not read it. That solution is crap. The real solution is to fix and simplify our legislation and the legislative process, but I guess that is a lot harder than simply passing legislation that you haven’t read so very few politicians are going to choose the real solution.
Why should Carper read the bill when he is not the one who has to pay for it?
Why burden our aristocrats with anything that smacks of work?
[...] Politics Tennessee Walker says that Carper won’t read the health care bill. I would ask Tennessee Walker why she was not up in arms over Republicans not reading the Patriot [...]
I don’t blame Senator Carper. It is not like we pay him around 170K or something to do the job. It is a charity job. Oh, wait we do pay him around 175K and this isn’t school board or city council where people actually read the stuff and not get paid for it. Maybe I was confused. What do we pay him to do? Cater to the special interests and liberal leadership?
Delaware liberal neglects to point out that the Democrats controled the U. S. Senate when the Patriot Act passed and ignored the few people who wanted to look at it from both parties, but many people did read it on our side. Some like Bob Barr and Ron Paul actually forced amendments like sunsetting it. The extention was under a Democrat controled Congress. Maybe they have forgetten 5 years of criticism from the right of the Patriot act from various contributors, Dave, Smitty, Maria, and myself. Maria and I have been particularily strong in our criticisms and called for outright repeal of many provisions.
With the Patriot Act, we were under enormous stress. Thousands were killed and we were under daily threat from terrorists. We had laws that had to be changed. With the law being sunsetted and a commission being added to monitor abuses, I could tolerate it being passed as emergency legislation. This is not and is a lot more complicated. The Patriot Act mostly tinkered with details of how federal law enforcement operated. Objectively, the bill saved lives though it could have done as well and not been as expansive.
The Health Reform Bill would radically revamp a huge portion of the economy employing one in six Americans and a service that almost everyone depends upon. Yes, I have a problem with Senator Carper and company not reading the Patriot Act which has never affected me or most Americans for that matter, but I have a lot more of a problem with them not reading a bill that is life and death for all Americans and many visitors or immigrants. If you think (rightly so) not reading the Patriot Act gave us terrible cavets, what do you think a special interest laden government power grab is going to be like if they can count on it not being read? Do you really trust that crowd with the life of you and your family site unseen?
The response by Delaware Liberal is the type of lame excuse making one finds from a high school sophomore who gets caught doing something wrong. Instead of defending their own actions, the typical 10th grade recalcitrant tries to defelect attention and consequences by pointing to another student and saying “Oh Yeah but the other guy over there is doing something worse, you need to punish him”
One can find this type of immature and inane reason among many adults. Such as:
1. The alcoholic who claims he as no problem because “He knows someone who drinks more than himself.”
2. The adulterer who claims they are not doing anything wrong because “everyone does it.”
3. and my favorite, The speeder who says to the Police officer,”Why aren’t you catching murderers and rapists instead of picking on people like me?”
The fact that Delliberal uses the same arguments as any other irresponsible, immature individual from the age of the average 7th grader on up to the oldest alcoholic says more about their lack of intellectual honesty then anything I can add.
A more honest approach would have been to condemn Carper for his approach and then a documentation Of an exactly comparable situation of others. All such instances should be exposed. Personally, I don’t see how the Health Care Bill reflects a response to an immediate emergency situation especially since the date of implementation is 4 years from now but hey they could make the effort instead of trying to defend Sen. Carper’s approach of not reading the bill and calling Legislative language gibberish.