You're right again. Do they have time to read everything? Most cases no, but in the President's case, I have a problem. Not touching on this bill (because I printed out all 200+ pages and it reads greek), but if you've every REALLY looked at a bill you would see why the Pres. must read all bills and not have his staff brief him on it.
Congress writes special laws and allowances into a bill. For example, hypathetically, if I was to introduce a bill into Congress that lowers the blood alcohol to .0001, representatives have the ability to also add things unrelated into the bill. Senator A might write in a special allowance of 2 million dollars to set up special housing for families with of people undergoing chemo, while Senator B could write in an allowance for a 150 million dollar study on whether grass grows better in direct or indirect sunlight (I know very trivial, but it's for explanatory purposes only). While I'm all for the housing add-in, who needs to spend $150 million on grass? It's up to the President to see such things and veto the bill. It's then up to Congress to rewrite the bill w/o the issue that the President said no to.
Clinton got in to a big bind (think WAY before the other stuff) when he vetoed a welfare bill because the Representatives had writen in a huge perk for themselves that didn't add up. He told the press that he had no problem with the actual bill, but with the little extra like that perk that were snuck in.
As far as the Patriot Act, I would not have such a problem with it if the Republican leaders had not rewritten the bill after the House Judiciary Committe had written and submited the original bill to Congress. The people who rewrote the bill did it the night before and then pressured the other congressman by making them feel that they would be considered unpatriotic by withholding their vote. Senator Russ Fiengold gave an 11-page speache to President Bush that notes several amendment rights. Especially the 4th. One of my biggest concerns is the fact that law enforcement has a right now to go through All business records including Your medical records. All they have to say to the Judge to get a warrent to do this is that is has to do with a terrorism investigation. At the moment, the gov. is enlisting the help of several consumer information companies to do this. Check out his speach at
http://feingold.senate.gov/releases/01/10/102501at.html.
Ok, now I'll shut up. I didn't mean to get into this as deeply, but once I started typing it just kind spewed out. I'm just a little PO'ed that the news didn't touch on this. Any other time, it would be a BIG issue.
Ellen in TX
