What’s In a Name: Can Taxpayers Trust Members to Read a Bill If They Can’t Be Bothered to Name It?

This post originally appeared at www.fiscalaccountability.org.

This morning, CFA sent an alert to the House of Representatives, urging members to vote against the Senate Amendment to H.R. 1586, which will funnel $26 billion in federal bailout funds to state Medicaid and education programs. We had previously warned the House that we may rate a vote on this bill, but new information has come to light that has made us increasingly more concerned that the legislation has not been properly reviewed – the bill does not even have a name. On the calendar, it is simply referred to as the "___Act of___."

Unfortunately, we've seen this feckless governing before. Remember the Cap-and-Trade debate last June where the House passed the bill before it was even cobbled together? And the health care debate, where taxpayers were repeatedly denied the opportunity to read versions of the bill as they were passed through committee in the dead of the night? It is therefore unsurprising that leadership made a big show of calling members back from August recess to vote on this bill to score political points, but when it comes to actually doing their job (i.e. naming bills, reading bills, understanding bills), Congress can't be bothered.