This sounds like such a bad idea

[unixronin]

CNET reports on a new initiative for the IRS to make better use of the Internet.  The following paragraph leaped out at me:

Complicating the situation is the Senate committee's unusual step of voting on a summary of the tax bill -- but not on the actual text, which has yet to be written.  That means the final wording of the legislation is still up in the air, even though it's awaiting a floor vote.

Granted, there's time for the final legislation to actually get drafted before it reaches the Senate floor.  Assuming the Senate reads it.  But it just seems to me like a really bad idea to have even a Senate subcommittee voting on a bill that hasn't actually been written yet.  It seems to me this opens up the possibility of the IRS having a pre-approved bill that they can then write whatever they want into.

And given the past track record of the IRS in harrassment and abuses, that's an unsettling idea.

Comments

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Simply going back to the old rules, in effect for a couple of centuries, will fix the problem. This is a deliberate ploy to prevent people from really reading the bill. It is not the only one by any means.

In programming terms, we would be bolting a kludge on a kludge. The best option is to remove the first kludge and let the elegance of the original rules prevail.

The biggest advantage of your system would be that it will stop any bills from being passed until the system is fixed. Many times, I have thought that gridlock in congress is a Good Thing (tm). (See Sam L. Clemens for further commentary.)