Senate committee: Hey, we found more taxes in Obamacare

by Ed Morrissey, HOT AIR:

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) scoffed at a proposal from Jim Bunning (R-KY) that would require a 72-hour period before the Senate could vote on a bill presented to the floor in order to give Senators — and their constituents — a chance to read the legislation. Durbin told the Washington Examiner that he supports reading bills before votes, but that he suspected the rule was nothing more than an eeeeeeeeevil Republican conspiracy to … do what? Promote literacy? Let Durbin explain:

Democratic leaders are even less eager embrace a Senate-wide rule change. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told me last week that he supports making sure there is enough time for lawmakers to read and understand legislation, but he questioned the motive of Bunning and other Republicans.

“They dream up new ways to slow things down every week,” Durbin said.

It’s hard to imagine the crushing burden of three extra days on a bill that takes months to get through committees, where windbags of both parties bloviate endlessly on trivialities while missing billions of dollars in new burdens on taxpayers. For example, the Senate Finance Committee — the very committee on which Bunning serves and attempted to impose the same kind of waiting period, unsuccessfully — just heard from the Joint Committee on Taxation that its new taxes on health-care providers are almost $30 billion higher than anyone thought:

[...]

MORE