ldsuttonjr Loc: ShangriLa

How to deal with this reality, which has been many years in the making, is a difficult challenge.
r Allan Brownfeld —
ALEXANDRIA, VA — In mid-January, Congress rushed through a massive spending bill of 1,582 pages; the accompanying explanatory statements added another 1,278 pages. It was v**ed on only 44 hours after it was posted, giving members of Congress less than a minute to read each page — if they gave up a night’s sleep.

When asked whether he read this $1.1 trillion bill, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) was honest. He responded, “Nobody did.” This bill will fund the federal government for the rest of fiscal year 2014, which ends September 30, 2014. The bill increases federal spending by $44.8 billion this year over the spending level previously set by Congress.

How many members of Congress know that this bill gives the oil and nuclear industries $154 million more than the Energy Department requested for nuclear energy, and $141 million more than requested for fossil-fuel development? How many are aware that the bill skirts a ban on earmarks by providing more than $44 million for the Army Corps of Engineers that the administration had not requested — or that the Pentagon was given $666 million to study illnesses such as breast cancer that have little to do with matters of national defense? The list of what members of Congress do not know is in the bill is a long one.

None of this is new. In 2010, Congress passed, and President Obama signed, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. At 2,319 pages, it is significantly longer than previous financial reform laws and approaches the extraordinary length of the Affordable Care Act. By comparison, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which established the Federal Reserve banking system and the single national currency, was 31 pages long. The Glass-Steagall Banking Act of 1933, which overhauled the entire banking system in light of hundreds of bank failures, was 37 pages long.

The complexity in legislation has created an industry of lobbyists and consultants — often former members of Congress and former congressional staff members — to help individuals and businesses to cope with what has been imposed upon them. University of London economist Anthony G. Heyes notes, “It is precisely the complex, opacity, and user-unfriendliness which underpin the value of their expertise” that t***slate into “selling advice to those they previously regulated.”

Peter Schweitzer, president of the Government Accountability Institute and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, tells the story of Amy Friend, a chief aide to Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) in crafting the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill and former chief counsel to the Senate Banking Committee. “After the bill passed,” he writes, “and became law, she left Capitol Hill and became managing director at Promontory Financial Group, which describes itself as ‘a premier global financial consulting firm.’ This Washington-based consulting firm is headed up by many people like Friend — people who were once responsible for erecting or interpreting arcane financial regulations in public service and then joined the group, where they can charge high fees to help firms interpret and comply with these befuddling regulations…. Banks complain about Promontory’s high fees, which can run up to $1,500 an hour. Eugene Ludwig, the former comptroller of the currency under Bill Clinton, reportedly makes $30 million a year running Promontory.”

Or consider Daniel Meade, who was chief counsel to the Financial Services Committee under Chairman Barney Frank (the “Frank” of Dodd-Frank). Meade left Capitol Hill for Hogan-Lovells, an established lobbying firm. When Meade arrived, the firm announced that Meade was “a principal drafts person of substantial portions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.” The firm explained that Meade would be “representing financial services entities and other entities impacted by the regulation of those entities in connection with a broad range of regulatory and t***sactional matters, including issues related to the Dodd-Frank Act.”

John Hofmeister, the former president of Shell Oil, saw the process at work: “They deliberately write ambiguity into the law. It’s part of a career-building process. If you are a congressional staffer, you spend your career crafting complex legislative language. This equips you to leverage your post-government competence. The whole system builds on itself.”

“For congressional staffers… it’s a huge payday,” writes Peter Schweitzer. “Sen. Ron Johnson was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010 from Wisconsin. A businessman and entrepreneur, he has hired plenty of people over the years. When it came to hiring congressional staffers for his new job, he was struck by a phrase some applicants used during the interview process: ‘cashing in.’ ‘I had never heard that term before when hiring someone in the private sector,’ Johnson says. Time spent working at a lobbying firm or at a consultancy is ‘cashing in.’ Some people work on Wall Street until they have enough money to ‘cash out.’ In Washington, they set themselves up for those jobs in order to cash in.”

Alan Siegel, who for many years has advocated greater simplicity in communications and was called “Mr. Plain English” by PEOPLE magazine, says, “Complexity robs us of time, patience, understanding, money and optimism. The U.S. was founded and governed for over two centuries on the basis of a document that is six pages long. That is 0.1 per cent of the current income tax code, which currently runs a whopping 14,000 pages.” Even IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman admitted on C-SPAN that he cannot do his own personal tax return anymore because “it’s just too complicated.”

Prof. Anthony Heyes believes, “[P]eople working in regulatory agencies have too little incentive to make or keep procedures and practices simple, t***sparent, and user-friendly.” He argues that one-third of the costs of regulations are “t***saction costs”– that is, “paying someone to help you jump through the ‘hoops and hurdles’ of the regulatory process.”

One way to simplify legislation and increase the possibility that members of Congress will read — and understand — the legislation on which they v**e is to adopt a single-subject rule for all bills. Article III of the Florida Constitution, for example, “requires that every law shall embrace but one subject and matter properly connected there with.” It would be good, of course, to require members of Congress to actually read the bills they are going to v**e on. Bills have been introduced that would require a seven-day waiting period between the time when a bill is ready for a v**e and when the final v**e actually takes place. Others suggest that all bills scheduled for a full v**e on the floor be read out loud. There has even been a suggestion that all members be required to read the bills before v****g — and to sign a legal affidavit attesting to that fact.

Such proposals may be fanciful considering the reality of today’s Congress. That we live in a society in which our legislators pass 1,000-bills they have not read and do not understand is beyond question. How to deal with this reality, which has been many years in the making, is a difficult challenge. It is one we would do well to confront.

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

It may be time to end all the "staffer" positions, thus requiring congress persons to write the bills themselves. This would ensure that at least ONE elected person would know what it said. These folks have gotten used to someone else doing their work for them.

Most of the actual governance is done by staffers, not the elected person. It is a case of asking " what does it say? ". Too much time is being spent on campaigns and none on actual work.

Patty

If they would have at least paid someone to read the affordable care act they would have discovered that little clause in there that gives big insurance companies tax payer bail outs also. I blame every single one of them. Now what they are trying to do is close the proverbial door after the horse is out.

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

Don't blame the Republicans who didn't v**e for the ACA since none to them took part.

Does it really make any difference what that law says when Obama has changed it over 30 times? I blame the Congress for not forcing him to stop making them irrelevant and the House for not impeaching him yet. Yes, I know the Senate won't throw him out of office but his legacy would still have that impeachment in it.

Patty

Not to be nit picking but Rep. Cao from Louisiana v**ed for it.

faithistheword

I'm sure they consider themselves 'too important' to actually legislate ! I really like that 'one subject' rule. How do we proceed to at least get something like that passed ? I know we should write our congresspersons, but ----STAFFERS are the ones who open the mail, and I'm sure they toss 95% of constituents incoming mail, and send out a standard, form response.

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

That's right. I know for a fact that this occurred with my own rep, as I confronted him. He genuinely had no knowledge of my letter. I asked him to fire the staffer responsible, but he could not pick out which of the 5 could have done it. 5? A chief of staff, a secretary, an assistant chief of staff, a legislative liason, an appointment secretary and two interns. For a man who sponsored only two bills last year. I asked him. WTF have you been doing? He replied that he was running for the Senate. I said, " you were only elected to the House in 2012, so you've been running for the Senate since then?" "pretty much" he says.