Read the Bill Congressman Conyers

Congressman John Conyers, (D-MI), the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, gave an illuminating look into the true legislative process at work in Congress. Rep. Conyers, referring to President Obama’s Universal Single Payer Health Care Plan in a speech before the National Press Club, said, “What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”

Conyer’s question was delivered as an intended laugh line, but it was received in total silence by an audience that had been generously chuckling at his remarks. Conyer’s off-handed remark lays bare the negligent attitude of a Congress that is seeking to gain absolute control of medical care in the United States, while hiding the true provisions of the bill from public scrutiny.

You don’t have two days and two lawyers to look over the bill, Congressman Conyers? If you are willing to pass a bill of over one thousand pages, filled with paragraphs and clauses that could affect the liberty, health, and prosperity of 300 million Americans, and you are not willing to read the bill, does that constitute criminal negligence? What about that interesting clause in the Congressional Oath of Office, which states that you will “well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office I am about to enter. So help me God.” Does not actually reading the bill that will shackle the American people with government health care constitute "well and faithful service, " Congressman?

Congressman Conyer’s remark should send every freedom-loving American shrieking in horror from the gang of bumbling, incompetent politicians now inhabiting the capital city. If this bill is so important to the well-being of the American people, why not take several months to allow the people to dissect it and learn every provision you are about to enact? Why not, as the Founders did with the original Constitution, take the provisions of the bill home to your state and let the people there approve or disapprove as they see fit? If the bill were an act with merit, no Congressman would be shy of doing just that. The fact that they desire to ram it through Congress without even reading it illustrates the merits of the bill quite well. Why, one wonders, does an inquisitive press not do some simple reading and (holding my breath) actually report on the contents of the bill to an interested public?

Instead the speed and secrecy of the current legislative process, illuminated in a casual remark before the National Press Club, where Congressmen vote for legislation they have not read, illustrates that this legislation is a naked power grab, intended to hamstring the economy, and shackle the American people to a government intent on “caring” for them from cradle to grave.




(See Congressman Conyer’s entire speech at:
http://npc.press.org/video/player.cfm?type=lunch&id=18298)