No Taxation Without Cogitation!

On this 4th of July weekend I would like to propose a revised version of the slogan that helped to rally the continental troops into fighting and defeating the English. Back then our forefathers complained that they had no vote in whether or not they would be taxed. Instead the King imposed all taxes. So the great slogan of No taxation without representation was born, thus helping to create the United States of America

Today, I propose a slight change to this slogan to reflect our current situation. My revised slogan is No taxation without cogitation. Aren’t familiar with cogitation? It’s a great old fashioned word that means concerted thought or reflection. So what I want my representatives to do is simply read all proposed bills, think about it and then vote. Sounds reasonable, right? And yet, from the first Congress there have been a few Senators and Representatives who would never bother to read a bill but would vote the party line. However starting this year, major bills are being passed in which none of our Congressmen or women are bothering to read what they are voting on much less cogitating on how much it would cost us, the citizens, when the bill is implemented.

This new trend started with the Stimulus Bill which grew into a 1000+ page bill which no one could have read in its entirety in the brief time between publishing the bill and voting on it. This massive bill, which would spend over $787 billion of our money, was passed by 246 people (ok mainly democrats) in the House and by 60 Senators. To their credit, our government officials were told that they had to vote on this bill immediately in order to resuscitate a dying economy. And yes, in January 2009 the news was grim with increasing unemployment and major companies failing left and right. We also had a new and exciting administration and so it is understandable if a vote on this bill was seen as yet one more support of Obama.

For all of these reasons, this massive bill, which few people read, was pushed through Congress on record time in order to save our economy. Now it is six months later yet less than a tenth of the money has been spent. OK, I'm all for saving the money if the economy is rebounding. Oh wait. The economy is worse than the start of the year. In fact, Obama’s economic team had said that if the bill was passed then the 7.2% unemployment rate at the time of the vote would probably peak at 8%. Oops. They just announced that our current unemployment rate is 9.1%. And that is with the $787 billion in stimulus aid! Seems to me that maybe somebody ought to finally read all 1000+ pages to see just what that money is earmarked for and how it is supposed to be stimulating our economy. All it has stimulated so far is the unemployment rate.

But did Congress learn? No. In fact last week the House of Representatives did it again. They passed another long bill regarding a new concept of Cap and Trade. From what I understand it is basically a taxing platform to raise money from corporations and citizens to spend on “green” environmental stuff. Even putting aside the ongoing arguments (and yes Senator Gore, people are still debating global warming as they should) there is still the unconscionable fact that our Congressmen and women once again voted on a bill which they didn’t read.

This time it was a complete farce. When Representatives complained that they didn’t even have a copy of the bill Speaker Nancy Pelosi told them that there was one copy at the podium. That’s it; one copy for over 400 people to share and read. Only problem is that even that “final” copy was missing the 300 pages of addendums added at 3am of the day of the vote. Denying Representatives a chance to even read a bill is a complete abuse of her power. Plus it is one thing to be loyal to a new administration but to blindly pass massive bills unread which would change the foundation of this country and heavily tax citizens in an effort to redistribute wealth is unethical and disgusting.

Has it reached the point where we need to demand that if a bill requires new or increased taxes then our Senators and Representatives who vote on it must sign a statement indicating that they read it in full? They would then be held accountable for what was in that bill and what they approved with their vote. If they were forced to read it and to be accountable then they just might produce reasonable bills without pages and pages of rediculous earmarks.

Plus isn’t accountability what Obama promised us? Wasn’t his administration supposed to be one of both accountability and transparency? And yet Congressmen can’t even get their own copy of a bill and when they do the bills are so voluminous that no one can read it in time for the vote. Plus there is the whole issue of the unheard of speed in which these bills are being forced through committees and onto the floor with little to no discussions and not even time to read it even if you had your own copy and wanted to read it.

It is time to say Stop! We must demand No taxation without cogitation! We and our children and grandchildren will be paying for the taxes hidden in these unread bills and we can’t let this go on. Beginning with the upcoming Senate vote on the Cap and Trade we must demand that our Senators at least read the bill before they vote on it.

And how sad that we even have to tell our Senators and Representatives to read something before voting on it. But thanks to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid who are trying to jam bills with massive taxing and redistribution of our country's wealth down our throats then we must demand of our Congressmen and women to read the bill and think about its implications before voting on it.

So join me in shouting No taxation without cogitation and maybe someday there might actually be a vote by people who have read the bill, understand its tax implication and had a lively intelligent discussion about it. Now wouldn't that be nice....