LogFAQs > #936165926

AssultTank posted...

Now we have come to the issue of riders. These are things that congresspeople tack on that have nothing to do with the main purpose of the bill. A bill about school funding could have a rider attached that prohibits smoking in grocery stores, one that makes it a crime to touch a certain species of bird, one that builds a fence to keep turtles off a road in Michigan, and one that provides funding to a commission to investigate the feasibility of building an elevator to the top of Mount Everest.

Usually though, riders aren't so amusing... They do things like make it illegal to be gay and get married, force abstinence only education, allowing wire taps without a warrant, fund pharmaceutical companies without disclosing the spending, or attempt to limit gun purchases by banning cosmetic features.

Then if you object to a rider, and you vote the bill down because of the rider, you get slammed for not supporting the main bill, even if you were the one who introduced it. By the time the Congress votes on literally any bill, the riders have made it virtually unrecognizable as the original bill, like some kind of nightmarish cross between Frankenstein's monster and a Christmas tree.

I disagree. In my opinion, it is exactly as simple as tc made it out to be >_>