Another Open Letter to CBS Newsman Bob Schieffer

(Or as my colleague Dan Klein suggests I title this post: “Ignorance of the Law: An Excuse in Making It But Not in Complying with It?”)

…….

Dear Mr. Schieffer:

Interviewed on December 11th by Washington’s WTOP radio, you observed that “none of the senators really knows what’s in the health-care bill they’re debating.” (You then excused this ignorance by noting that “the problem they’re tackling is very complicated.”)

Here’s a question that I’d like you – as one of America’s most respected news analysts – to ask Sen. Reid and Speaker Pelosi: “If ignorance of the law is no excuse, and if this health-care bill becomes ‘law,’ will Congress excuse private citizens from the obligation to obey every new command and to pay every new tax specified in this health-care legislation?”

Surely ignorance of the law is an excuse – and a darn good one – for those whose actions run contrary to its commands if the ‘law’ is so long, wordy, and complicated that even the legislators who voted for it cannot read and comprehend it all.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

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dullgeek

Dr. Boudreaux:

Previously, you have made a big distinction between law and legislation. In this case when you say "law" are you referring to the emergent rules that people actually follow, and that legislation is meant to document, or are you referring to legislation?

It strikes me that, by not reading and understanding the bill, that Mr Reid and Ms Peolosi are ignorant of both the law and the legislation. And that the confusion in the legislation being considered is a result of ignorance of the laws of supply and demand and how they interact with health care finance.

But I'd be interested if this is what you meant.

Thanks.

Randy

Its being written as a tax law. That is, it will be left up to the bureaucrats in the IRS to determine what it all really means.

Methinks1776

Which is scary because with the IRS, you are guilty until proven innocent. The IRS can destroy your life before your case is ever heard in court.

JohnK

That does seem to be the method of choice for going around constitutional constraints: putting conditions into tax laws.

vidyohs

Congress is beyond embarrassment, always has been.

muirgeo

It's looking like this bill is being made to order for the corporate health insurances oligarchs. Force people to pay for health insurance coverage and give them no choices but private health plans.

Randy

"corporate health insurances oligarchs"

Do you seriously believe that these "corporate" entities are not de-facto government agencies?

failed state

Is this a recognition that government power is inherently corruptible?

failed state

Wouldn't giving government more power increase the incentive to pay politicians to direct the power in the direction of the wealthy? Might it not be more productive to free people from such coercion?

johndewey

"Wouldn't giving government more power increase the incentive to pay politicians to direct the power in the direction of the wealthy?"

Not sure what you mean by wealthy. It is not just the individually wealthy but also the collectively wealthy who bribe politicians. Unions are the prime example. At the state level, even low-paid occupations such as hair stylists have influenced politicians to restrict the supply of their occupation by passing licensing laws. Only a few senior citizens are individually wealthy, but as a group they have disproportionate influence on politicians becuase of their collective actions.

muirgeo

It's a recognition that are system is corrupt and needs reform. If the goal is to have a government of the people we aren't achieving that goal. If we were a single payer or a strong public option health care bill would have been passed in August.

JohnK

You say the system is corrupt and needs reform. I'll agree with that.
Here's the problem. Your idea of reform seems to always involve growing that corrupt system in some way, shape or form.
Don't you think that a better solution would be to identify particularly corrupt aspects of the system, dismantle them, and start afresh?

Marcus

You chastise us in a post in another thread (which I can't find right now) that we supposedly don't understand the corruptibility of government as though it is somehow libertarian philosophy which leads to it.

You have it exactly backwards. We understand the corruptibility of government perfectly well. That's why it's not suppose to be 'of the people', it's suppose to be LIMITED.

Unfortunately, politicians get up on the soapboxes and talk about all the grand things they're going to do and people like you fall for it and let them expand the scope of government. You fall for it every time. (OK, maybe not every time, only when it's a Democrat, just as right wingers fall for exactly the same thing when it's a Republican).

brotio

And it's a Democrat bill. Don't forget that. It's a Democrat bill.

muirgeo

Yes it is. But it is not the bill the progressives want or support. The democrats would be fools to pass it and there is a move by progressives to kill it. Again the power of lobbyist is great and the DLC is beholden to them. Progressive Democrats would remove such power from lobbyist.

Obama is taking big time heat from those who voted for him unlike anything you saw with Bushites who supported everything he did.

Democrats have a hard time as their members are independent and diverse and do not think in lock step like the neocons.

johndewey

"Progressive Democrats would remove such power from lobbyist."

I had vowed not to reply to your comments, but i just cannot help it this time.

Are you that naive, murgeo? Do you truly not understand that it is because of big government intervention that lobbyists exist at all? Naive voters who call themselves progressives may truly desire to eliminate lobbyists. But those lobbyists, and their donations made through PACs, are exactly what so-called progressive congressmen live for.

If so-called progressives really wanted to get rid of lobbyists, they would reduce the power of Congress. But so-called progressives are doing exectly the opposite.

Are you really that naive?

Marcus

"Progressive Democrats would remove such power from lobbyist."

No they wouldn't. What they would do is expand the power of the federal government under the guise of doing so. There by solidifying the power for which they will be lobbied.

"Democrats have a hard time as their members are independent and diverse and do not think in lock step like the neocons."

That's why you regurgitate all the same crapola as all the other 'independent and diverse' Democrats, is it? That's kind of funny, thanks for the chuckle this morning.

BTW, you're barking up the wrong tree with that one. I don't see too many 'Bushites' or 'neocons' hanging out here.

JohnK

If you disagree with a liberal then you are automatically labeled a 'Bushite' or 'neocon'.
Then the liberal can attack the straw man they just created.
It's so much easier than paying attention to the other person and responding to their actual argument.

Economiser

>> The democrats would be fools to pass it and there is a move by progressives to kill it.

Oh, please please please let that be so. Finally we agree on something!

Methinks1776

Progressive Democrats would remove such power from lobbyist.

Yeah, they have their own set of lobbyists paying them bribes who must be appeased, dangit!!

floccina

Amen and that should go for IRS too!

Matt

Don't worry Don. They don't need to know what's in the bill when their favorite lobbyists know the bill like the back of their hand... or like the balance of their check books.