Sen. Max Baucus of Montana didn’t want to “waste” his time reading the landmark legislation. Besides, he says, Congress has “experts” for that sort of thing.
Who are these “experts”? Why, the industry lobbyists whose job is to direct federal spending to their clients! It’s nothing but a massive transfer of wealth from the public to the no-bid monopolists who own and run senators like Max Baucus like so many franchisees. From the Flint Report:
As an update on the story out of Libby, where Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius joined Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) for a listening session Monday, apparently Senator Baucus- the Chairman of the US Senate Finance Committee who helped author the federal health care bill- still hasn’t even read the entire thing.
This according to The Flathead Beacon, which filed this report.
Judy Matott asked Baucus if he would work to improve Libby’s image, and then asked him and Sebelius, “if either of you read the health care bill before it was passed and if not, that is the most despicable, irresponsible thing.”
Baucus replied that if Libby residents assembled an economic development plan, he would do what he could to help, and he took credit for “essentially” writing the health care bill that passed the Senate.
“I don’t think you want me to waste my time to read every page of the health care bill. You know why? It’s statutory language,” Baucus said. “We hire experts.”
Read the rest here.
Get it through your heads, Americans: Congress is a purely ceremonial body whose purpose is to rubber-stamp legislation that transfers wealth from us to the ruling class of insiders. Sitting at the top of the insider hierarchy are members of Congress, who scorn the Constitution and mock their constituents.
Actually reading legislation before passing it is so last century. Remember House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said earlier this year that Congress needed to pass the health care bill in order to find out what’s in it? Here’s what she said back then:
If there ever was a person that I have found to be inane then she is the one, what a piece of work, if she is voted back in I am moving out of here forever.