True North

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) scoffed at a proposal from Jim Bunning (R-KY) that would require a 72-hour period before the Senate could vote on a bill presented to the floor in order to give Senators — and their constituents — a chance to read the legislation.  Durbin told the Washington Examiner that he supports reading bills before votes, but that he suspected the rule was nothing more than an eeeeeeeeevil Republican conspiracy to … do what?  Promote literacy?  Let Durbin explain:

Democratic leaders are even less eager embrace a Senate-wide rule change. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told me last week that he supports making sure there is enough time for lawmakers to read and understand legislation, but he questioned the motive of Bunning and other Republicans.

“They dream up new ways to slow things down every week,” Durbin said.

It’s hard to imagine the crushing burden of three extra days on a bill that takes months to get through committees, where windbags of both parties bloviate endlessly on trivialities while missing billions of dollars in new burdens on taxpayers.  For example, the Senate Finance Committee — the very committee on which Bunning serves and attempted to impose the same kind of waiting period, unsuccessfully — just heard from the Joint Committee on Taxation that its new taxes on health-care providers are almost $30 billion higher than anyone thought:

The Joint Committee on Taxation says drug companies, medical device manufacturers and insurers would pay $121 billion over 10 years as a result of taxes in the Senate Finance Committee bill.

That’s compared with $92 billion originally calculated.

The tax experts said the reason for the change is that the companies won’t be able to deduct the fees from their corporate income taxes.

You know how they figured that out?  They read the bill.  Imagine what Americans could find in this legislation if we had time to read it before the Senate took a vote!  Of course, that’s really what Durbin wants to avoid, not a minimal three-day waiting period — which, by the way, is still less than the five-day waiting period imposed on Americans who want to exercise their Second Amendment right to purchase firearms.

If we have to wait five days to purchase a firearm, it’s not unreasonable to require the Senate to take three days before pulling the trigger.

Cross-posted at Hot Air.

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