Utopian Legislation
July 30, 2009
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Posted by Michael S. Langston
As I’ve noticed a seemingly increase in the number of bills being passed in the US system verging on or over 1000 pages, I started questioning whether this seems logical.
We know the tax code is so complex it now takes up 50K pages, which seems irrationally high & complex.
From a design or research point of view, the usual goal is to minimize everything to it’s simplest possible form without sacrificing the project itself. As the saying goes, make it as simple as possible, but no more.
With that in mind, what if a law ere passed which tried to help prevent the overly complex legal system we currently have? Allowing the average person to know if they are breaking a law and to be able to better participate in government decision making.
What if we tried to move the legal system where not one single CPA will agree with another CPA on the tax code, into a more simple system that the average person can be involved with?
I humbly propose this (though it’s not a fully formed idea):
First – all bills should use common language and structure so the average individual can understand. If I have to make a flow chart diagram out of all the “if this, then that, else this” crap like they have in contracts these days, it gets dumped instantly. This is tough because defining common language isn’t easy. So maybe this wouldn’t work.
Second though, as this can actually be measured, every bill has to be made available to the public for a length of time which allows the average person to be able to read and therefore opine on said bill. The numbers below are taken from several sources, though more research would be needed as I’m sure averages can be gathered about bills themselves.
Having said that, assuming an average person can red 200 words per minute, with about 30 minutes a night to read, and 1 hour over the weekend. So they have 3 & ½ hours.
Therefore the average voter can read (200 * [60 * 3.5]) or 63,000 words a week.
Assume average words per page is around 400, allowing (63K / 400) or 157.5 pages a week.
So the current health care bill would need to be open to the public for at least (1000 / 157.5) or 6.4 weeks.
And this assume that the bill is completely self contained – if the bill has information that states something like
In US Code 34-20, page 87, paragraph 2, subsection 5, change the third word from “or” to “and”
Then you add the additional US Code pages to the calculation. If US Code 34-20 is 1000 pages, the bill has to be available for an additional 6.4 weeks.
& lastly, executive summaries do not count. The entire bill has to be available to the public for debate prior to passing new laws.
As most politicians act as if they don’t honestly think their constituents are smart enough to have an opinion on legislation, it will likely never happen…. But one can dream!
Categories: Legislation
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Tags: Congress, Health Care Reform, Legislation, Policy, Thought Experiement
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