DownsizeDC- Fake Read The Bills Act Alert!

[bushwacker]

URL: http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/2006/jan/11/stop_counterfeit_read_the_bills_act

Stop counterfeit Read the Bills Act


Today's Downsizer-Dispatch...

We must do immediately something we'd hoped to postpone until Spring. We must start booking me on every radio show in America to tell people about the Read the Bills Act.

And we must start building a coalition of talk show hosts, blogs, and organizations to pass RTBA.

Why were we delaying these things? Why are we rushing to do them now? I'll tell you.

On Sunday's ABC program, "This Week," George Will spoke of the need to "downsize" the federal government. This was immediately followed by another panelist commenting that there needs to be a waiting period before Congress votes on legislation. Do these concepts sound familiar to you?

In our nation's capitol it's safe to assume this is no accident. The other panelist suggested, for example, that the waiting period be a mere 72 hours. This was the exact RTBA-counter-proposal Congressman Tom Feeney of Florida made to me when we met in September.

We've also heard other rumblings recently that the forces are gathering to offer a counterfeit "Read the Bills Act." Frankly, I would not be surprised if such a counterfeit is actually called the "Read the Bills Act." But it will only, at best, require that bills must be posted on the Internet 72-hours before a vote, NOT so that Congress HAS to read them, but so the American people have a CHANCE to read them.

Such a bill would accomplish very little in our mission to Downsize DC. The main reason it's being considered is to relieve the pressure to pass a true Read the Bills Act. Such a bill would not do the most important thing we intended - slow Congress down and cause them to pass fewer laws and spend less money.

As a result of this, DDC president Jim Babka is launching a media blitz to raise awareness about these fake "RBTAs", and to promote the real one. Donations of any and all kinds are welcomed, as we need to pay a lot of $ to a lot of people in order to get the word out on many influential radio and TV talk shows, etc. Many have alredy donated, but we need as many as possible. Large donations are welcomed, but even if you can only donate five or ten dollars, the Foundation would be most greatful!

[Stoo_Pot]

Reminds me a bit of what happened when the G8 summit and Live 8 was happening.  The UK govt got behind it all and said "wow this is such a great idea, yeah! lets end poverty woohoo" and sort of jumped on the band wagon because they knew it was a popular idea.  The annoying thing is that live 8 was supposed to be a stand against the govt not a public relations boost.  What I'm saying is, when they see that an idea is popular, they like to say that they support it but then do the opposite.  Very little progress was made at the G8 summit (surprise surprise).  In this case it seems like they know that the read the bills act will get lots of support so their releasing their own version which does much less damage to them than the original.  It's disgusting plain and simple.