why are bills so complicated?

It seems like long bills in hard to understand language disconnect the voters from the information they need to be informed voters. That's no secret, but why don't we have a requirement to have single subject bills, in plain English, so we can understand them. Please give your opinion on if setting this requirement is a good or bad idea and why.

 

If they were simple enough for a layman to understand they would be open to too much legal interpretation. The writers are attempting to make them legally "ironclad". Most bills have a synopsis that explains their intent in about three paragraphs. Then they have a long list of considerations and exceptions. Unfortunately after all of that they many times have add ons that have nothing to do with the actual bill, which should be a major concern to voters because it bypasses normal legislative process. These add ons are most often concessions to special interest groups in the aim of getting the bill passed. The people in these special interest groups are normally wealthy, they control people on both sides of the political spectrum. Don't delude yourself thinking that your particular affiliation is more innocent.

 

The above poster is pretty much correct. Bills more than likely will be challenged in court by some group or another so further legal explanation of the contents of the Bill and how it applies to law must be included. Otherwise if it is not specific than interpretation by different parties will overwhelm the courts.

As for adding onto Bills with things that are irrelevant it is true that this in some ways circumvents the legislative process. But this is not only done to appeal to special interests but for the mere fact that the Congress does not have time to hear literally thousands of separate Bills that every Congressman wants for his State.

However you don't have to look far to see how some in Congress abuse this add-on, which is why a line-item veto by the President is necessary in my opinion.

 

Well put, and right on. I agree with the OP; one subject one bill, but good luck getting such a measure passed. Our government exists on being able to pass bull(*)(*)(*)(*) to gain votes. They certainly will not allow themselves to be limited.

 

Good luck trying to get anymore federal funds for your State then. Instead of adding this amount to Bills being passed, each one will have to be brought separately to the floor of the House of Representatives. You have any idea how long every Bill for every State for each piece of separate funding is going to take to go through Congress?

 

Sounds good. Less spending being passed can only help at this point.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

 

Ok. Lets ignore the fact that State governments will shut down without Federal funds. Congress also passes many bills that aren't spending bills. Many of them are grouped together and now all of these will slow down to a crawl also.

Your basically advocating a near stop to legislation. This country needs legislation passed, even if its bad, to function.

 

It does, and it makes sense to pass legislation that needs to pass rather than do what we are doing now. There is a reason we're 14 trillion dollars in debt. I honestly see no problem with slowing the process down and ensuring that only necessary bills are presented.

 

That is the problem i'm arguing. Even the necessary legislation, if passed separately, will not be possible to do in one session. Necessary legislation is appropriating money to the States which is usually done En Masse but 50 different legislative processes just for this one function is more than the Congress does now.

This isn't even touching on other important and necessary legislation. Each Bill has certain procedures which have to be followed and you simply cannot do this quickly.

 

I'm still not seeing the problem. That which is necessary will get passed, that which isn't will get debated. It's a lot better than what's going on now. How man senators read the PATRIOT act? How many read Obama care? Who even reads anymore? We have a system where we can pass a 100 dollars for item X and end up with 56000 for abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxwyABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVW and that 100 for X. Again, 14 trillion in debt. The current system is what lead to that. I see no problem with making it harder to pass things and it's only logical and reasonable to pass one item per bill. So what if less stuff gets passed; the things that do get passed will be important. Either that or we'll (*)(*)(*)(*) up the nation which, lets face it, we're already doing.

 

This holds true for so many things. Contracts, written guarantees and warrantees, disclaimers, ballot initiatives, product instructions. Hell we have 9 people whose job it is to figure out how our constitution should be interpreted.

 

Also to add to what you say, many bills have to change language in existing law to make them legally binding, so you wind up with long passages that do nothing but repeal or modify existing sections of the legal code. This was one of the major causes for the length of the Affordable Care Act. I actually sat down and read that legislation and the modification of existing law accounted for a huge portion of that bill.

 

Why don't we have congress meet more often.

 

I have read through a number of bills and the language seems purposefully complex. Meaning there could be some legal factor that I am missing but I could imagine a number of ways to say it that would be easier to understand and consistent, coherent and clear. I also understand the need for jargon. But reading a medical paper I can easily get the gist of what is going on and look up jargon to further my understanding. In this legal language the phrases seem up for interpretation. Or there are so many modifiers it convolutes the meaning.

"H. R. 4123

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to permit the Secretary of the Treasury to issue prospective guidance clarifying the employment status of individuals for purposes of employment taxes and to prevent retroactive assessments with respect to such clarifications."

This bills purpose is to permit the Secretary of the Treasury to issue guidance to clarify the employment status of individuals for the purpose of employment taxes. This will help prevent confusion and the need for the IRS to issue retroactive assessments because of this confusion. In order to accomplish this we need to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.

IMHO the second way seems clearer.

 

Good question. good post. I will try to find an answers to your question here, which I doubt I will.

 

I think you nailed it right there

 

Instead of dumbing down bills so stupid people can understand them how about these stupid people increase their knowledge a bit so they can understand what the bills are saying.

Perhaps you guys would like bills in the form of comic books with big pictures so you can have a clue what's going on.

This is really a pathetic thread.

 

Basically hypocrisy needs to be disguised. and idiots will always claim that they understand what they do not just to appear smart.

EXCELLENT THREAD

 

A disguise only works on the uneducated people who shouldn't be voting or concerning themselves with the legislative process anyways. To the rest of us, the bills are perfectly clear.

 

In the good old days, Congress was writing bills without thousands of 'regulators' and had to write laws that folk could understand to enforce. Today thye write mostly crap in gibberish unread in the knowledge some of the horde of regulators will rewrite it to do whatever the bureaucrats want it to.

I was thinking of this the other day and figured the best way to get Congress to write and read what they wrote, and to limit the number of such bills, would be to remove 90% of the regulators from the DC.

 

A goodly amount of those costs to the state come directly from unfunded mandates on the states. I'd trade less money from the feds for less demands by the feds any day.

 

Why? Is not legislation needed to deal with an actual problem? Do you really believe legislation today addresses real problems? Most is simply to fund fluff for the legislator and IMHO 90% of non budget legislation is bad for the country. And Congress no longer writes budgets!

Think for a moment. Congress passes a needed bill, say the 'Clean Air Act' and the bill deals with the actual problem. After a decade or so, the original problem was gone. The air was better than ever. Did regulation writing stop? Nope, those career regulators still are writing regulations to deal with a problem already dealt with. For every real issue dealt with they add thousands of non issues to regulate...we drown in minutia and still the regulators write. There is no end and the purpose of the original legislation is lost under the weight of silliness and intrusion.

 

There is not a person on the planet, not a one, who knows everything and every cost in the misnamed 'affordable care act. Just this week they discovered another $111 Billion in hidden costs in the mess.

 

The universe of the Global Warming cult comes to mind...

 

The way Congress develops tax and spending legislation is guided by a set of specific procedures laid out in the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. The centerpiece of the Budget Act is the requirement that Congress each year develop a "budget resolution" setting aggregate limits on spending and targets for federal revenue. The limits set by the budget resolution, along with a companion "pay-as-you-go" rule, apply to all tax or spending legislation developed by individual committees as well as to any amendments offered on the House or Senate floor.

1. The following is an overview of the federal budget process, including:
the President's annual budget request, which kicks off the budget process;
the congressional budget resolution — how it is developed and what it contains.

2. How the terms of the budget resolution are enforced in the House and Senate.

3. Budget "reconciliation," a special procedure used in some years to facilitate the passage of spending and tax legislation.

Take note of number 3. The posters in this thread are saying they want to do away with reconciliation and have each item in the legislature contained within its own bill and submitted separately.

Doing this will stop this entire process i've just outlined meaning that there will be no rules on spending within the current budget year.