Today’s New York Times presents evidence that it did not.
It is often said that the new health care law will affect almost every American in some way. And, perhaps fittingly if unintentionally, no one may be more affected than members of Congress themselves.In a new report, the Congressional Research Service says the law may have significant unintended consequences for the “personal health insurance coverage” of senators, representatives and their staff members.
For example, it says, the law may “remove members of Congress and Congressional staff” from their current coverage, in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, before any alternatives are available.
The confusion raises the inevitable question: If they did not know exactly what they were doing to themselves, did lawmakers who wrote and passed the bill fully grasp the details of how it would influence the lives of other Americans?
Butternut says:
Understand? They didn’t even suspect.
April 13, 2010, 8:16 amEdward Lunny says:
Ignorance and stupidity, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature ! It’s a wonder that these folks can find their own way home at night.
April 13, 2010, 8:19 amPeter Gerdes says:
Alternatively, given the difficulty of passing the bill with republican fillibusters and the requirements of the reconciliation process they just shrugged and said, “We can just fix that latter.”
I mean it’s not like the republican’s are going to filibuster their own health coverage.
Besides, no matter where you come down on health coverage and this particular bill everyone must admit that at times it’s necessary to pass huge packages of changes in one go. Not only because of the need for political compromise that may require several simultaneous changes but also because our society and economy are complex and certain changes that may be beneficial in concert could be useless or even harmful in isolation. Given this fact, it seems shortsighted to demand that congress wait for the perfect bill all the time rather than passing the main points on the assumption that they will clean up minor issues as they surface.
April 13, 2010, 8:28 amDerHahn says:
Nobody demanded a ‘perfect’ bill. Just an understandable one.
April 13, 2010, 8:36 amDerHahn says:
You’re also ignoring the other major sources of complexity – the need to write the bill in such a way that it would acheive a ‘good’ CBO score, and the need to bribe the Dem’s own party members before they would vote for it.
April 13, 2010, 8:39 amSteve says:
Where’s the evidence that they didn’t understand?
April 13, 2010, 8:41 amcboldt says:
“Before any alternatives are available” doesn’t make sense; I see it as a blatantly false assertion. Insurance companies currently provide policies. Is this not an available alternative?
April 13, 2010, 8:44 amThe only thing that members of Congress and Congressional staff lose is “if you like your current coverage, you get to keep it.” Just like the rest of the public.
Parasites don’t thrive when the host is failing.
Butternut says:
OK, what are the main points?
They flung a bucket of shit against the wall. You are assuming that when they get done scrapping the more offensive turds off that wall we will be left with a Da Vinci. I do not believe that. I believe it will still be a wall covered with shit.
April 13, 2010, 8:45 amcboldt says:
– Where’s the evidence that they didn’t understand? –
April 13, 2010, 8:47 amThat conclusion is imputed by the author or authors of the NYT piece, from the contention (which may be false) that members of Congress and their staffs will suffer some sort of health care loss. E.g., gap in coverage between current coverage and some undefined alternative.
PeteP says:
2,300 pages of dense cross-referenced legalese, trillions of dollars at stake, and ‘the standard’ is that ‘it’s made available 72 hours before voting on it’. ya, right.
Pelosi told us : ‘We have to pass the bill so you can understand what’s in it’.
What she was actually saying was “We’re going to pass this bill before anyone has a chance to even read the thing”. and they did.
The Dems know they have a once-in-several-generations window of power right now ( luckily crippled when Scott Brown was elected ), and they are going to continue to cram every last bit of their agenda from the 60′s and the 40′s that they can possibly get away with.
They got their government take-over of health care and college tuition financing, now they will try to do the same for the financial world ( courtesy of Dodd and Frank, who gave us our current debacle ), immigration ( blanket amnesty, thinly wrapped in a cloak of a trivial ‘fine’ and English lessons ), climate / energy control, and anything else they dreamed of. It will all be done in the same way as ‘health care’, screaming dark threats of ‘The sky is falling, it has to be done NOW !! THIS YEAR !!, because they know that come November, the Magic Moment dissipates.
April 13, 2010, 8:48 amFrank Drackman says:
This is a body where a member seriously thinks the Island of Guam might capsize…..Always wondered how many Represenatives/Senators are on drugs…probably about the same % as the general population, afterall the % of Felons in Congress has remained a pretty constant for the last 50 years, exact number depends on whether you count the Late Senator from Massachussets as a Felon or not…
April 13, 2010, 8:50 amChem_geek says:
What part of “filibuster-proof majority” don’t you understand?
April 13, 2010, 8:53 amcboldt says:
The solution seems simple. Make all residents of the country, not just 8 million, but all of them, eligible for this program. Voila, all Americans have access to the same thing that Congress grants itself.
April 13, 2010, 8:55 amcboldt says:
– This is a body where a member seriously thinks the Island of Guam might capsize… –
April 13, 2010, 8:58 amI’ve heard that this particular member is suffering a disease that affects his cognition, and if so, my heart aches for him and his family.
But at the same time, assuming his comments were the subject of delusion, the fact that Congress keeps him in their fold speaks to the complete absence of standards on the part the sane ones.
Anonsters says:
That was pretty hysterical. His soulful baritone only made it more comical.
April 13, 2010, 8:59 amAnonsters says:
Dems never had it, not with the number of DINOs in the Senate Dem caucus.
April 13, 2010, 9:00 amcboldt says:
– What part of “filibuster-proof majority” don’t you understand? –
April 13, 2010, 9:02 amThe Democratic Party lost that lock-step filibuster proof majority when Scott Brown was elected senator from Massachusetts. In order to surmount objection to vote, the Democratic Party needs at least one crossover vote from the GOP caucus.
When the stakes are bennies for Congress, the Democrats will get an ample number of crossover votes. I would expect a few token opponents, but probably 80-90 senators would approve of amending the law to insure no gaps in coverage, and no loss in value of coverage.
Sill says:
You guys have too much time for gossip, if this Guam thing is any indication. As for the bill, now we know why so many greedy congresspersons were against it, they wanted to keep their gold-plated plan.
April 13, 2010, 9:06 amTim says:
Congress needs to be subject to job performance standards like the rest of us. If a boss gives an employee papers to read in preparation for a very important negotiation, and, at the time of the negotiation the employee hasn’t read it them and is unprepared, there would be consequences. Senators and representatives have no immediate consequences and can actually hide the fact that they aren’t prepared. If they’re not in leadership positions, they’re not likely to face questions from those knowledgeable enough to spot their incompetence. They should have to certify in the Congressional Record that they have read every bill they vote on and not be able to vote unless they do!
April 13, 2010, 9:17 amPeteP says:
“You guys have too much time for gossip, if this Guam thing is any indication.”
‘Gossip’ ? You call it ‘gossip’ that a sitting Member of Congress, one of 535 ( ~ ) people who hold the future of this country, and many trillions of our dollars, in their hands thinks an island is going to tip over if there are too many people on it ?
“As for the bill, now we know why so many greedy congresspersons were against it, they wanted to keep their gold-plated plan.”
Do you actually think for a moment that any CongressCritter had the slightest concern or idea that that might be in the bill, or that the bill might be read that way, and that a clarifying section wouldn’t have been added if they did ?
April 13, 2010, 9:18 amSill says:
Yes, PeteP, you’re a gossip, and of course they knew how it would effect them.
April 13, 2010, 9:27 amShelbyC says:
Well, they had one for close to a year or so, no? What stopped them from passing a bill instead of farting around trying to bribe each other?
April 13, 2010, 9:30 amConstitutional Doubt says:
Does congress ever understand the legislation it passes? No, not fully. A quick look at ADEPA proves that.
April 13, 2010, 9:39 amCal says:
Which raises the question, did the constitutional convention understand what it was passing?
April 13, 2010, 9:43 amJust Dropping By says:
For people still carping about the representative talking about Guam “capsizing,” I’m curious as to whether those same commenters also talk about how stupid people during WWII must have been when they made comments to the effect that if you cut the barrage balloons loose from the island of Britain it would sink under the weight of the troops and equipment massed for D-Day. See example here: “if someone were to inadvertently cut loose the barrage balloons, the whole blessed island would sink under the weight of our supply dumps.”
April 13, 2010, 9:50 amCornellian says:
I’d hazard a guess that few, if any, members of Congress understand the bills they vote on, as a general rule. Legislation is too large and complex these days for them to read it all, and doing so is entirely unnecessary to their major objective of getting reelected. They just run with the three bullet points their staffers give them and that’s about it.
They’ll be slightly more informed if they’re on a committee with jurisdiction over the bill and genuinely familiar with the bill if they’re the committee chairman responsible for getting the bill through Congress, but those are exceptions.
April 13, 2010, 9:59 amASlyJD says:
Just Dropping By:
Pointing out that morons have always been with us doesn’t make them any less moronic.
April 13, 2010, 9:59 amuh_clem says:
Joe Lieberman?
Seriously, 58 D + 2 I != filibuster proof majority.
April 13, 2010, 10:00 amAngus says:
Because they naively kept seeking a bipartisan bill. Once they realized that Republican talk of “bipartisanship” was nothing but a sham and that Republicans didn’t really want health care reform, they finally went ahead with a bill.
April 13, 2010, 10:01 amcboldt says:
– What stopped them from passing a bill instead of farting around trying to bribe each other? –
April 13, 2010, 10:02 amBarking spiders.
Moneyrunner says:
Now do you say “full of crap” politely?
April 13, 2010, 10:08 amCal says:
In reality this only effects the few congress persons, who rely on their paycheck, and their personal staff, most congresspersons could self fund their offices insurance needs many times over.
April 13, 2010, 10:11 amnoahp says:
@Angus. I guess you forgot Obama’s response to a Republican complaint about a Dem tax proposal at a bipartisan conference early (following which there were none until Feb. ’10) in his regime: “we won”. You have it exactly backwards, the Democrats sought some Republican votes in order to achieve the appearance of bipartisanship.
April 13, 2010, 10:19 amcboldt says:
– For people still carping about the representative talking about Guam “capsizing,” I’m curious as to whether those same commenters also talk about how stupid people during WWII must have been when they made comments to the effect that if you cut the barrage balloons loose from the island of Britain it would sink under the weight of the troops and equipment massed for D-Day. –
April 13, 2010, 10:23 amJust Dropping By, you are either being disingenuous or making a joke. Your link goes to a context-free snippet, and the use of “the island will sink” at that time was a well-practiced joke line.
Frank Drackman says:
What about a clearly drunk Max Baucus babbling on and on on the floor of the Senate a few Months ago??? Sure it got some You-Tube play, but No intervention, No Breathalyzer on his Senate Desk to prove he’s sober before voting…
What was it William Buckely said??? sooner be governed by the first 535 names out of the Boston Phonebook???
Frank
April 13, 2010, 10:29 amUrso says:
We’d end up with an entire title of the US Code saying ‘Yankees suck’ over and over again
April 13, 2010, 10:39 amParatrooperJJ says:
Quite clearly, they don’t care what is in it as long as it increases their power over the people.
April 13, 2010, 10:44 amuh_clem says:
Right. And Rep. Hank Johnson’s capsize comment was meant metaphorically, not literally:
Life must be rough for metaphorically-challenged-Americans, so I’ll refrain from making any snarky comments about failure to grasp the obvious.
April 13, 2010, 10:45 amShelbyC says:
Well, that was indeed pretty naive. If you want bipartisanship, you probably shouldn’t be focusing on an issue that you need to pass in the current term because your party has a historic majority and probably won’t have such a majority again for a long time.
If you want bipartisanship, you should focus on an issue that both parties support. A good faith effort to balance the budget on terms acceptable to both parties would have done nicely.
April 13, 2010, 10:47 amchris says:
great post. to be frank i am not sure i understood it completely. but, wanted to step upand leave a note anyway. are you a writer by trade?, because your blog is really strong.
April 13, 2010, 10:50 amDon Miller says:
Congress writes big complicated bills on purpose. There is always things stuck in there that surprise us when they come to light.
Congress could have easily written small targetted bills to try and fix specific issues with health care. Fix one problem, see how the market reacts. Fix another issue, see how things change. If it doesn’t work, repeal, it try something else.
That is how sane people try and fix complicated issues. But it does make it exceedingly hard to add funding for a couple extra highway projects and a museum when the bill is short and easy to read.
April 13, 2010, 10:53 amcboldt says:
– Rep. Hank Johnson’s capsize comment was meant metaphorically, not literally. … I’ll refrain from making any snarky comments about failure to grasp the obvious. –
It was so obvious, his audience didn’t get the joke either. “Refrain,” yeah, well, you didn’t (refrain, that is).
April 13, 2010, 10:59 amSarcastro says:
This is exactly how insurance works! Changing one thing in no way has any effect on other parts of the market!
April 13, 2010, 11:05 amBrian K says:
why does everyone keep forgetting that there are not one but 2 independents. lieberman switched affiliation because he really had no choice if he wanted to be elected again. the filibuster proof majority has been a useful fiction for the right wing to continue to bash congress and avoid any responsibility on themselves…but it is just that – a fiction.
although i wouldn’t expect the math challenged right wing to understanding this.
April 13, 2010, 11:20 amShelbyC says:
Come on, Sarcastro, everybody knows that changing one part of the market effects many other things related to that market. And since we’re able to predict what all those effects are, we may as well deal with them in one bill, right?
April 13, 2010, 11:23 amyankee says:
Actually, the much-vaunted filibuster-proof majority lasted less than two months. The Democrats didn’t have 60 votes until Al Franken was sworn in on July 7, and they lost it when Ted Kennedy died on August 25.
April 13, 2010, 11:27 amPersonFromPorlock says:
So now I’m curious: does the phrase “competent authority” have any real-world meaning, or is it just a legal term of art? Because if by some strained interpretation it can be taken to mean, you know, competent, there might be a whole new reason to find Obamacare invalid. And indeed, anything else enacted by this Congress.
April 13, 2010, 11:33 amSarcastro says:
No, ShelbyC. It would have been much better if Congress had passed just a small little bill that did one thing, market forces bedamned! Then, later, after the market has painfully compensated, to do it again, and to repeat!
Anything else is fascistic.
April 13, 2010, 11:37 amShelbyC says:
Oh come on. We all know that giant complex bills cause way fewer unintended consequences than small, simple ones.
April 13, 2010, 11:45 amfwb says:
Can you say BREACH OF TRUST?
Violation of oath of office?
April 13, 2010, 12:00 pmAlex J says:
No piece of legislation ever is completely read by the entire congress, let alone understood by all of them. It is not physically possible. The only way to make this even remotely possible is to have Henry Paulson write all the legislation.
April 13, 2010, 12:01 pmSarcastro says:
Totally true. But the best part of small bills is how they might even fail to get their intended consequences to occur!
I know I was hoping for forcing coverage of preexisting conditions with the attendant rise in premiums. But somehow the Democrats didn’t take that advice when a bunch of Republicans gave it!
April 13, 2010, 12:02 pmThorley Winston says:
Not to mention it makes it harder to hide the effects of each of your proposed “reforms” when they’re jumbled together with unrelated provisions in order to game the CBO score.
April 13, 2010, 12:02 pmSonicfrog says:
– Where’s the evidence that they didn’t understand? –
Two possible answers
(1) There were no provisions, statutes, or other items in the bill that specifically address this issue, leaving them uninsured, and
(2) The fact that they were going to enter into the same system as everybody else would have been a tremendous selling point; “See, our plan is so good, we have so much confidence in it, that we, the Congress, are ditching our Cadillac coverage and joining the rest of you, as we should have long ago”.
What a tremendous selling point that would have been.
They didn’t know. They were clueless.
April 13, 2010, 12:07 pmSlow says:
Isn’t the key word “may.”
Congress passes terrible legislation all the time. Most of the time gaps and inconsistencies are fixed when the executive agencies enact their regulations implementing the new statutes.
Members of Congress and their staff are not going to loose their health insurance, so this story is mainly just filler and not very useful.
Most members of Congress do not read all the legislation they vote on. Some are good enough to have staffers attempt to read it all. Many of them just rely on CRS for the cliff notes version and advice from members on the committee that drafted the legislation.
But why complain, we are no different. How many of you research and know every single candidate you vote for on a ballot? Most of us know the people at the top, and maybe a few others, but we really have no clue about the rest. What about every ballot initiative, or bond issuance that goes to public vote?
However, the suggestion of randomly drug testing members of congress seems like a great idea. Lawmakers love imposing the tests on students and other professions. I say test them all and if they have any controlled substance in their system, and do not have a valid prescription for it, than it gets published publicly.
April 13, 2010, 12:52 pmWaste93 says:
You seem to forget that Mass changed their laws and then appointed a Democrat senator until the special election. Paul Kirk was sworn on Sept 24, 2009 and served til Feb 4, 2010. Since the Senate voted on Healthcare in Dec 2009 he actually did vote on it.
@ Brian K – The two independents caucus with the Democrats and have committee postitions given by Democrats. They are Independents in name only. What percent of the time do they vote with the Democratic majority vs the Republicans?
April 13, 2010, 12:59 pmChris Travers says:
This is why, as we say in the software industry, one should “eat one’s own dogfood.” Here Congress has done the right thing by ensuring that they are the first group affected. This will help ensure that bugs get worked out before it gets rolled out onto the masses.
April 13, 2010, 1:10 pmChris Travers says:
Ummm…. I thought they did….. ;-)
April 13, 2010, 1:13 pmChrisHo says:
Understand? Understanding was not a requirement.
This was purely a political power play.
It was for control. It was not for the benefit of the people but for the benefit of the politicians
April 13, 2010, 1:17 pmShelbyC says:
Know what you mean. Currently I’m hoping for the forced coverage of preexisting conditions to be extended to car insurance so I can get some body work done.
April 13, 2010, 1:18 pmleo marvin says:
For maybe the first time ever, the spammer wins the thread.
April 13, 2010, 1:19 pmElliot says:
Of course they knew what was in it. Congressman Hare said he read the thing three times. That’s a total of 8,100 pages.
April 13, 2010, 1:23 pmTetrisd says:
Is it ever possible to “fully grasp the details of how it would influence the lives of other Americans?” Do you think Bush “fully grasp[ed] the details” of his tax cuts — that it would lead to exactly $XX deficit Y years down the line? I don’t think so. That’s quite a high standard.
Now, if someone could show me that Congress did not meet a “minimally grasp the details of how it would influence the lives of other Americans” standard, then I would be upset.
April 13, 2010, 1:23 pmPunditKix says:
The Volokh Conspiracy » Did Congress Understand the Health Bill It Passed?…
Trackback from PunditKix…
April 13, 2010, 1:33 pmnoahp says:
@tetrisd Bush ’03 tax cuts resulted in a sustained rise in Federal tax receipts starting 3 months after enactment reversing a steady decline due to the recession he inherited from Clinton (and despite a hard whipping with a wet noodle by the Fed). In fact, one could argue (and I am) that had the Dems not filibustered earlier attempts by Bush to cut income tax rate cuts then perhaps the Feds would have tightened earlier and we could have avoided the worst of the collapse of the housing bubble.
I know “coulda, shoulda, woulda”. But the “tax cuts for the rich” narrative as the source of all our troubles is just flat out absurd.
April 13, 2010, 1:52 pmRich says:
Did they understand what they passed? – I guess the real first question is: Did they even think that they were supposed to read it first before we can ask if they understood it!
I would believe a used car salesmen before I would believe these people.
April 13, 2010, 1:59 pmbailey says:
We can be certain that Congressman Hare must have noticed it during the three times he read the bill front to back, right? As to Congressman Johnson, any apologist for him must not have seen the footage.
April 13, 2010, 2:19 pmdan says:
This post obviously comes from the world of “People Who Can’t Bother to Read the Whole Article”
If you do bother to read the whole article, you will find that this provision was (a) put in the bill on purpose; (b) the subject of actual debate; and (c) the subject of a committee vote. Contrary to the first sentence of Adler’s post, there is absolutely no “evidence” in the article that Congress didn’t “understand the health bill it passed.” In fact, the evidence is to the contrary.
Sloppy, Prof. Adler.
April 13, 2010, 2:19 pmTetrisd says:
@noahp: The effectiveness of the tax cuts wasn’t really the point. Perhaps I could rephrase my example as “Bush didn’t fully understand how great his tax cuts would be for the economy.”
Anyway, my point was that I could care less whether Congress “fully” understands the influence-in-fact of any bill it passes. That’s an impossibly high standard for any body to pass, at least until we have a supercomputer that has figured out the algorithm of the universe. It’s good enough for me that Congress has a “pretty good idea” how its action or inaction will influence American life.
April 13, 2010, 2:23 pmSarcastro says:
[Nah, I'm with Sonicfrog. If this was on purpose, it woulda been a bigger deal politically.
It probably is bad drafting. And I have no doubt it will be fixed most expeditiously.]
April 13, 2010, 2:25 pmKevin[0] says:
But what if they wanted it to LOOK like they’re incompetent, when all the flaws in the bill actually ensure that another bill will be passed to fix them?
April 13, 2010, 2:51 pmTed says:
Or, for an optimist, fasctastic!
Published? I think you mean punished. Congress-critters are not above the law, even if they are oblivious to it.
April 13, 2010, 2:51 pmShelbyC says:
Sloppy yerself:
After the part you’re talking about:
April 13, 2010, 3:13 pmwooga says:
uh_clem,
April 13, 2010, 3:19 pmYou obviously have not watched the clip. Rep. Johnson goes into a meandering discussion of the relative shape of the island, with the “least widest” portions being here, and the other parts there — and then waves his arms and leans his body to emphasize the LITERAL capsizing of the island. If he were making a metaphor (and surely, anybody who has followed Rep. Johnson knows the man is incapable of a metaphor above the fourth grade level), there would be no reason to discuss the relative shape of the island. That only matters for flotation purposes.
bailey says:
Is Dan really Congressman Hare in disguise?
April 13, 2010, 3:20 pmuh_clem says:
I have watched the clip.
The capsize comment is preceded by a discussion of the area of the island (square miles) and it’s current population. And it is followed by a discussion about the environmental impact of all those people in a small area.
It seems to me that he was trying for a humorous or hyperbolic effect but it fell flat with the audience. Which shows he’s a poor comedian. It doesn’t mean he actually thought the island would capsize.
April 13, 2010, 3:39 pmPeteP says:
“It seems to me that he was trying for a humorous or hyperbolic effect ”
And we’re paying this guy HOW much per year to make a lame attempt at being a sit-down comedian on OUR time ? With an Admiral, in a formal Congressional hearing, on C-span ?
April 13, 2010, 4:08 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
uh_clem,
It seems to me that he was trying for a humorous or hyperbolic effect but it fell flat with the audience. Which shows he’s a poor comedian. It doesn’t mean he actually thought the island would capsize.
You honestly think so? I mean, I do know some people capable of that level of deadpan-ness, but I doubt any of them could’ve kept a straight face after watching the admiral try to answer w/o communicating “this guy is batshit insane.” If you’re aiming for humor and no one seems to be getting it, you find some way to indicate that it was meant as humor. He showed no signs of trying, and I’m afraid I do think he was serious.
April 13, 2010, 4:13 pmaeolius says:
It certainly is interesting to see so many congressional scholars expressing their views.
April 13, 2010, 4:42 pmI would like to ask them to give an opinion on just how many bills are presented in time to be adequately read?
There was some suggestion from the Left that certain of the post 9/11 bills (also involving purported civil rights abrogations)were presented with no time to read them.
Or say that Phil Gramm sneaked in the repeal of hedge fund regulation hours before the last vote before a recess.
(Just two of my favorites)
wfjag says:
You’re referring to §1312(d)(3)(D)(i), of the HCA. It provides that the only health plans that the federal government may make available to members of Congress and congressional staff with respect to their service as a Member of Congress or congressional staff shall be health plans that are:
The provision only clearly applies to Congressmen taking office after the HCA’s effective date in 2014, and staffers who become employed after the effective date in 2014. So, the people who voted for the HCA and current staffers may escape this provision – but, that’s a nicety that likely will be overlooked in campaigns this fall.
Or, maybe Nancy Pelosi was being truthful — first pass the HCA, then find out what is in it.
April 13, 2010, 5:36 pmArkady says:
Here’s the relevant language:
(D) MEMBERS OF CONGRESS IN THE EXCHANGE.—
April 13, 2010, 5:50 pm(i) REQUIREMENT.—Notwithstanding any other
provision of law, after the effective date of this subtitle,
the only health plans that the Federal Government
may make available to Members of Congress and
congressional staff with respect to their service as a
Member of Congress or congressional staff shall be
health plans that are—
(I) created under this Act (or an amendment
made by this Act); or
(II) offered through an Exchange established
under this Act (or an amendment made by this
Act).
neurodoc says:
Sure you aren’t confusing Leonardo Davinci with Chris Ofili? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Ofili
April 13, 2010, 5:53 pmTev says:
It’s a good thing the Admiral was not as clueless as you Michele, since he was chuckling when he answered.
April 13, 2010, 6:07 pmShelbyC says:
C’mon, everybody. Whether you’re for or against the bill, you have to admit that if Congress accidentally turned off its own heath care as part of the bill, it’s the most hillarious thing that’s ever happened.
April 13, 2010, 7:11 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
Regarding Guam, it was a popular rumor among service people stationed there (as I was in the early 70s) that the entire island tapered ‘in’ underwater to a narrow column of rock from which it might fall off.
Just sayin’.
April 13, 2010, 7:40 pmBarbara Skolaut says:
No, the inevitable question, is did they care how it would influence the lives of other Americans?
The obvious answer is, “Hell, no.”
April 13, 2010, 7:52 pmDave N. says:
All I know is that Hank Johnson is a huge improvement over his predecessor, Cynthia McKinney.
That said, when I watched the clip, I thought he was serious.
April 13, 2010, 9:12 pmPeteP says:
“All I know is that Hank Johnson is a huge improvement over his predecessor, Cynthia McKinney. ”
Jack Nicholson reprising his roles in ‘One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ or ‘The Shining’ would be a huge improvement over Cynthia McKinney …..
April 13, 2010, 9:21 pmneimoller says:
this is a real stretch. i’d go with the “guy is confused from his meds” routine, although it speaks very ill of congress that basic control of mental faculties isn’t a prerequisite for keeping the job.
my award goes to the general though for successfully keeping a straight face and providing a non sarcastic answer. kudos sir!
April 14, 2010, 8:42 amAmiable Dorsai says:
I’ll bet they at least read it.
April 14, 2010, 9:24 amElliot says:
I don’t know how many are presented in time to be read.
But I would ask what the time constraint is? What is it? What constraint demands votes be taken on significant legislation without adequate time to read and analyze the final product? When bills are written in secret, what demands they be voted on in a few days?
Is there some requirement that a bill be voted on in 72 hours? One week? One month? What time constraint other than the life of the 101st Congress do we face?
April 14, 2010, 11:51 amShelbyC says:
I have no idea if he was serious or not, but there is no absolutely no indication on the clip that he wasn’t serious. The only evidence that he wasn’t serious is the fairly reasonable assumption that he couldn’t have possibly have said something that stupid.
April 14, 2010, 12:00 pm