The Brevity Act: Time for a 28th Amendment
29th June 2009
lier this year, Congress passed a “Stimulus” Bill. It was 973 pages long. This past Friday, the House passed a “Climate Change” Bill. It was more than 1200 pages long.
Yet the bill that was passed on June 26, 2009 by 219 of our elected representatives — people to whom we’ve entrusted our Constitution, men and women who have sworn an oath to uphold it – was more than 1200 pages long. That’s over 100 times longer than the U.S. Constitution! And not one member of Congress, NOT ONE, read the whole thing!
A word comes to my mind to describe this: “INSANE.”
2000 words is about 5 single spaced pages in a 12 point Word document. If it’s longer than that, then it’s too complicated to be a single law or bill, so it must either be cut or turned into multiple bills, each requiring a separate vote.
An excellent idea whose time has come.