You're the Sucker

You may not realize it, but you are in the middle of a high-stakes game with politicians, various industrial interests, environmentalists, and assorted other special interests. The game everyone is playing is five card Cap and Trade and the latest rules are 1,201 pages long(pdf), up from 946 just a few days ago. Don't worry though, that will likely change before they bring it to the floor on Friday:

This, apparently, isn’t even the final bill. The final bill will be a manager’s amendment that will be drafted later this week! From a posting on the House Rules Committee, we know that the deadline to submit amendments is Thursday at 9:30am. And there is talk that this will be voted on on Friday. Thus, the final version of this bill will likely only be available for less than 24 hours.

What, you're not going to have time to read the bill or maybe even a decent synopsis of it? Bummer, because you're playing anyway. All of the others at the table have paid staff to take care of such things and they will be looking out for their interests and following the rules. And you may want to keep in mind that your congressman is certainly looking out for constituents, though they may or may not include you. 

But I realize that it will be almost impossible for the average person to wade through this stuff. A Paul Newman quote comes to mind here:

“If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.”

Write your congressmen and demand that they give the public the time to understand exactly what is in this bill and who benefits/loses. A couple of weeks of debate on something that has such wide ranging impacts is not unreasonable. If they are afraid to let the sun shine on a bill, it's almost certainly not worth the paper it's printed on.