I had the same reaction you did, Steve. While not a lawyer, I read many, many loan and legal documents as a banker. In a whole lot of cases, I needed the assistance of our lawyers to explain the meaning of terms, the inter-relationship between sections or how existing law impacts on the content of the document I was reviewing. In many instances, about the best I could do alone is prepare a list of questions that I needed help with.

In reading thru HR 3200, in a cursory manner as you did, I find this bill in the same category, except that I don't have a lawyer to lean on. That being the case, I found it interesting that some posters here in the Political Forum listed the meaning of various sections and various pages with such absolute certainty. I went back and read several of the pages they cited and came away with either a question or with an altogether different interpretation.

A whole bunch of people were also aghast that Representative John Dingell said that he saw little benefit for him to read the entire bill. I know that his role was just to introduce the bill that someone else actually wrote and that he was probably being honest. But I found his statement ill-timed and unwise in that he still was listed as the principal sponsor of the bill. One really needs a lawyer to spend the time explaining the bill, it's terms, definitions and interrelationships. Is Dingell a lawyer? Even if he isn't, he's been making laws for a long, long time.