Congressmen admit to not reading NDAA before voting for it

"Hey Moe, should we read the bill?"

Retard Alert!  -  US House members admitted they had not read the entire $585 billion, 1,648-page National Defense Authorization Act, which predominantly specifies budgeting for the Defense Department, before it was voted on Thursday in Congress.

“Of course not. Are you kidding?” Rep. Jim Moran (D-Virginia) said when asked by CNSNews if he had perused the entire bill, which was just posted online late Tuesday night before it was ultimately passed in by the House by a vote of 300-119 about 36 hours later.

Moran said he did not plan to read the entire bill before voting because “I trust the leadership.”

“Do you think [House Speaker John] Boehner and [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid have read it?” asked CNSNews.

“I know their staff has,” Moran responded.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) also indirectly acknowledged the near impossibility for anyone to read such a comprehensive bill. He told CNSNews he had not read the full text, but understands its contents.

“The committees have gone over it, it’s been in conference, and I have an outline of exactly what it does,” he said. “So, I know what it does.”

The 2015 NDAA targeted US soldiers with cuts to benefits and other services.

“The bill also reduces benefits for troops and their families. It would raise the copay by $3 for most pharmaceuticals under Tricare, the military health insurance plan,” The Hill added.

The legislation also included cuts to subsidies for military commissaries, where US service members buy groceries, by $100 million.

In addition, such massive, must-pass bills are chocked full of “pork,” or just about anything a House member, especially those with clout, can pass by House leadership and the various committees that have domain over the bill’s attributes.

For example, as RT reported Wednesday, the 2015 NDAA includes a handful of land deals including one that gives a foreign mining company 2,400 acres of national forest in Arizona that is cherished ancestral homeland to Apache natives.

“Since time immemorial people have gone there. That’s part of our ancestral homeland," Terry Rambler, chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, told The Huffington Post. "We’ve had dancers in that area forever - sunrise dancers - and coming-of-age ceremonies for our young girls that become women. They’ll seal that off. They’ll seal us off from the acorn grounds, and the medicinal plants in the area, and our prayer areas.”

(RT News)

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