Here’s an interesting nugget of information:
No Child Left Behind: 280,000+ words
House version of health care reform legislation: 319,145 words
Senate version of health care reform legislation: 318,512 words
I wonder if those same conservatives who are decrying how big the health care reform bill were singing the same tune when George W. Bush and Republicans in Congress were working to pass No Child Left Behind.
The kicker is when the republicans say it is 2,074 some odd pages. But it is 2,074 some odd pages because it is double spaced with double wide margins and large print.
Two nice quotes from the bottom of the article, “Various versions of Tolstoy’s novel are 560,000 to 670,000 words.”
And “The type is small and tight. No hernias will be caused by moving this rendering of the bill around. Unfurling it on the Capitol steps would not be much of a spectacle. It’s 209 pages.”
You mean the bill sponsored & led through Congress by Ted Kennedy?
Wonder no more, I’ll tell you if the same conservatives were critical of NCLB. We were. While the goals were laudable, and idea of actually creating some accountability for schools to ensure federal funds were/are put to good use, the fact of the matter is many (most?) conservatives saw it for what it was: the single biggest expansion of the federal government into education in history. Let the feds set bare minimum requirements and curriculum recommendations, but I don’t want their money or control. Of course it’s not technically required – so as to get around the constitutional problem. But then, you opt out and the feds still take your money – sort of like a robber taking your wallet, but giving you a few bucks back saying you voluntarily participated.
Back to clearing up the revisionist history – in the House, there were 45 No votes. 34 were from Republicans, 10 from Democrats. In the Senate, of the 8 to vote against, 6 were Republicans. In other words, there were a lot more Republicans against it that Democrats.
Locke, NCLB may have been sponsored by Ted Kennedy, but you and I both know that bill was GWB’s pet project.
It started out as a pet project but like just about everything in Washington, got all mucked up along the way in order to buy votes. 90% of our legislators voted in favor if it – it was a “shining example” of bipartisanship. And by that I mean, Republicans wanted more control and accountability, Democrats didn’t. So they compromised by making the accountability a little more ambiguous and dumping a ton more money into it.
We can go back & forth about who was responsible, whether it was on the whole good or not, what parts of it are good, what are bad, etc…But again, back to main point & topic at hand – you wondered if conservatives had problems with NCLB and I answered. Conservatives most definitely were critical of it – for a myriad of reasons including that it was too big, was a federal power grab, resulted in amending dozens and dozens of existing legislation already passed, etc.
Again Zach, your hatred of the right is misplaced. Just keep fishing and casting your uninformed net.
NCLBA was bipartisan and was not the massive amount of one sideness that the health care bill was. And how much time was the NCLBA worked on by both parties? Answer below since you would not do the work.
No Child Left Behind Act – received overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress
The bill, shepherded through the Senate by Senator Ted Kennedy, coauthored by Representatives John Boehner (R-OH) and George Miller (D-CA) and Senators Judd Gregg (R-NH)
Introduced in the House as H.R. 1 by John Boehner (R-OH) on March 22, 2001
Committee consideration by: Education and the Workforce and Judiciary
Passed the House on May 23, 2001 (384-45)
Passed the Senate on June 14, 2001 (91-8)
Reported by the joint conference committee on December 13, 2001; agreed to by the House on December 13, 2001 (381-41) and by the Senate on December 18, 2001 (87-10)
Signed into law by President George W. Bush on January 8, 2002
Zach why didn’t you even research to real amount of pages instead of taking the lazy way and using a + sign.
Jeff, the health care reform legislation passed by the House was bipartisan.
As for the number of pages in each bill, as liberalssavetheworld already pointed out, the number of pages in a bill can be easily manipulated by cranking up the font size, adding some double spacing, and using extra wide margins.
Nice try though!
283,892 for NCLB. Interesting that jeffn and locke are commenting on the text in the bills not what the post was actually about, the right complaining about how big the healthcare bill is while forgetting how big NCLB was.
I don’t remember anything in the post about vote totals or who spoonsored what, only word counts.
Not sure what planet you live on Zach, but the health care bill is not bi-partisan. House passes health care reform bill; Vote garners only one Republican. One Republican voting for doesn’t make it bi-partisan. Make it works that way for the libs and government workers such as yourself, not the rest of the world!
Partisan Senate Health Care Reform Bill is Disappointing, Grassley Says
http://grassley.senate.gov/news/Article.cfm?customel_dataPageID_1502=24204
Give us proof Zach that the report was double spaced and formated to make it long. Proof is not some blog post, but real story article from a reporter or senator/house member. Forgive me Zach, but a blogger’s word without real backup is nothing but talk!
Jeff, here’s a definition for you:
bi⋅par⋅ti⋅san [bahy-pahr-tuh-zuhn]
–adjective
representing, characterized by, or including members from two parties or factions.
Last time I checked, the health care reform bill passed by the House was passed with support from Democrats and a Republican, which fits the definition of bipartisan.
As for the proof you require regarding the health care bill being double-spaced, I’ll provide you with another link, since you obviously didn’t click the link in my original entry:
Had to split my comment as it was too big and too many links that it saw it as spam.
All you did is give me another link to the same story! Not real backup and proof!
Zach, Zach, Zach.
Did you sleep through your college classes?
MLA paper standards – double spaced lines
http://www.csus.edu/owl/index/mla/mla_format.htm
APA paper standards – double spaced lines
http://chiron.valdosta.edu/mawhatley/3600/apaform.htm
How about if you want to do a research paper for The Journal of Pediatric Health Care
Research columns are limited to 5-7 double-spaced pages
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S089152450300227X
How about if you want to do a research paper for The Journal of Pediatric Health Care
Research columns are limited to 5-7 double-spaced pages
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S089152450300227X
Using this link you can see where you cut & paste so much of your attack.
http://www.startribune.com/business/72785792.html?elr=KArks:DCiU1OiP:DiiUiacyKUUr
Infact your own spin reference link states the following: “The actual Senate bill, which Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced last week, came in at 2,074 double-spaced pages, 84 more pages than the House version, which was already being ridiculed for its size.”
Towards the top it hints that the double-spaced copies are republican, but Harry’s own is double spaced.
“Even bigger when you display double-spaced copies with double-wide margins and large print – then pile copies of the House and Senate bills together so that the cameras see something monstrously tall.”
Your info comes from one source!
But they all use just the same source, the AP CALVIN WOODWARD and DOUGLASS K. DANIEL. Infact all the links out there use the one source!
In the end double space is the norm. To make it easier to read. Zach do you think any of your dems read it all?
And your link, they tell you that they don’t read it, they hire someone to do that for them.
“Lawmakers routinely debate massive legislation without absorbing every word. They employ people to find what matters to them.”
No one in the House or Senate should talk about this thing unless they have read it – I don’t care which party they are from…………
Zach give your reads proof that all other bills are not done this way! Snopes has nothing on it besides telling you to refrence like page 489 or 1603, so congress must use the smae formated copy for it.
Do some read research besides cut and paste.