[hughprime]

I agree. How about six months? All the major issues have been festering for years, what's an extra six months of delay?

Remember, the government can't build a new road without three years of planning, community consultation, environmental impact statements, mandatory waiting periods, careful negotiation with all stakeholders, and whatever other bureaucracy might crop up along the way. But when the government wants to pass a bill to spend a trillion bucks or fundamentally change the nature of the economy, they seem to think that about twelve hours is the ideal length of time to spend debating it.

[tptacek]

72 hours? Six months? How about a year?

What we need is a better process for informing people about the issues involved in legislation. But we don't run congress by referenda, and whether or not legislators "read" bills is irrelevant: they're voting based on political calculation and personal principles, and nothing is going to change that.

[lionhearted]

> ...and whether or not legislators "read" bills is irrelevant: they're voting based on political calculation and personal principles, and nothing is going to change that.

I think we should try change it. It's a horrible state of affairs.