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The marketing arm of Congress has always been more inventive than Congress itself. It seems that the marketers, the ones who give titles to proposed legislation, have bet on the ignorance, or apathy, of the American people. Too often those bets have paid off. They come up with grandiose names. Names that, at first glance, people like. They know that few will understand the legalese in the bill, even if they have the time to read it. So we dolts are left to trust our elected representatives to tell us the truth. Those of us who still trust our elected representatives (there are fewer of us every day) deserve to be called dolts. I thought it would be instructive for us to look at a few of the more clever titles, and what the bills actually did, once approved by Congress.

In 1987 the FCC became concerned that public discourse was being slanted by the explosion of conservative talk shows on the radio, So Congress passed a bill called The Fairness in Broadcasting Act. (President Reagan vetoed it). The bill, simply put, would have forced private broadcasting companies, those hosting conservative talk shows, to fund the entire operations of public broadcasters. That would be like forcing Ford to subsidize the operations of the horse carriage industry back in the early 1900s. This was a blatant attempt to force socialism on the air waves. In a relatively free market, if the product isn’t wanted by the people, it should not be subsidized. It should just go away.

In 2009, the House brought forth HR 1409, The Employee Free Choice Act. Who would be against such a bill? Well it seems that employees were. The bill took away the right for employees to vote privately when deciding whether to unionize. A full 70% of employees polled wanted the right to vote in private. You can guess who was in favor of the bill.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Better known as Obamacare. The purveyors of this bill promised that we would see an average savings in premiums of $2,500 a year. Our President promised that if we wanted to keep our doctor, we could. Period! He said if we wanted to keep our current plan, we could keep it. Period! Well, everyone saw their premiums skyrocket. Millions of Americans were not able to keep their doctors, or their plans. The well informed know that we were lied to. In typically condescending manner, Zeke Emanuel, one of Obama’s advisors on the legislation, told us that choice in health care was overrated. He was basically saying we didn’t need choices. He, and the government, would do a better job of choosing our options than we would. The most grating comments of all came from another Obama advisor, Jonathan Gruber. Professor Gruber said, “. . . And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical to get for the thing to pass. Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.” In other words, if they had told the people the truth we would not have fallen for it. Democrats have always viewed the Constitution, and laws, a nuisance. They believe the ends justify the means. Whatever it takes to get what I want is acceptable. In the end it protected relatively few patients, and became outrageously unaffordable! What it did do was further the goal of the Democrat Party. It grew government. It established 159 new government agencies, boards, and programs. The bill was presented as a 20,000 page behemoth that was voted on less than 48 hours after being presented to members of Congress. In her most famous quote, Speaker Pelosi cluelessly said: “We have to pass the bill to find out what is in it”. To pass a bill that affects 1/6 of the American economy, and every American citizen, without reading it is an egregious dereliction of duty. Every member of Congress who voted for the bill, without reading it, should have been removed from office.

Now that the Build Back Better fiasco has been tabled, it is on to HR-1, the House version, and S-1, the Senate version, of the For the People Act. The #1 in each case, designates it as the #1 priority of the Democrat Party. When you look closely at the bill it is clear why they are so eager to pass it. If they lose either of the Houses in 2022, they will have lost the last chance at an historic power grab. There are a few provisions in this bill that would help clean up the voting process in America, and are therefor good. You will hear plenty about them, and only them, as the Dems push for passage. I am more interested in bringing to light the provisions of the bill that will hurt the people. If you want to help the people (WTHTP) would you take away their constitutional right to set election laws in their own states? Our Founding Fathers put this in the Constitution as an essential protection of our rights and freedoms. This bill removes that right from the people and gives it to the Federal government.

The most urgent issue facing our nation is to convince voters that elections are not rigged, and that only legal votes will be counted. If Americans aren’t convinced that the election process is fair, and honest, nothing else matters. Honest Americans want to make it easier to vote, but harder to cheat. What follows are a few things the bill requires that will make it easier to cheat. If you WTHTP would you make it illegal to remove dead people, and people who no longer live in the state, from the voter rolls? This bill would do that. The bill would require every state to offer early voting for 15 consecutive days prior to election day. It further mandates that polling places be open for at least 10 hours each day. Then, for those lazy a**es who still can’t make it out to the polls in that 15 day window, it would make election day a holiday. This bill would remove the requirement for voters to present IDs. Any person without ID would simply be required to sign a form saying that he/she is who they say they are. Over 75% of Americans are in favor of showing a voter ID. If passed, this bill would mandate that ballots received via the mail must be accepted, and counted, until 10 days AFTER election day, if they are postmarked no later than election day. Anyone have access to a postage meter? The bill would require same day registration. It would require the state to automatically register individuals listed on any state or federal database. Please notice the language says individuals, not citizens. It provides a 6 for 1 federal match of campaign contributions. This creates a huge advantage for incumbents. It also would require states to allow what is known as vote harvesting. A disproportionate amount of fraud, associated with ballot harvesting, has occurred in states that currently allow it. This is but a brief list of the items that are NOT for the people. Believe it or not I could list many others. The bill is clearly improperly named. It should be called the For the Politician Act. It is a craven attempt to take power away from the people. I will be writing, and speaking, more on this topic in coming months.

Please don’t be sucked in by the attractive names given to proposed legislation. Don’t accept your elected representative’s explanation as gospel. Get a second opinion. I frequently refer to the Heritage Foundation’s website for clarification of bills that are introduced. They are politically right of center. I have found them to be honest and informative for the most part. The website is www.heritage.org. Please pay attention to what our government is trying to do to us.

I hope you learned something new, or found this post interesting. If you did please tell your friends about it.

Thank you, Bob