300 wpm

According to Forbes magazine, the average adult reads 300 words per minute (wpm). High functioning executives can average 600 wpm, and trained speed readers can average 1000 wpm without sacrificing comprehension.

The current Omnibus $1.3 trillion spending bill is 2,232 pages. Assuming an average of 745 words per page, that gives Congress just under 1.7 million words to read before they vote on the budget bill to prevent another Government shutdown.

To put that in perspective, H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care Act, also known as ‘Obamacare’ at 11,588,500 words was ten times as long as the current Omnibus spending bill, and then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi guaranteed 3 days – 72 hours to be exact – to read the bill before calling for a vote. The average magazine has 50 read-worthy pages, not including advertisements and photos, and the average novel comes in around 100,000 words and 400 pages.

So asking Congress to read 2,232 pages before Friday night means they either need to split up the bill and read only portions, comparing notes as a group, or choose not to sleep, take phone calls, or go to the bathroom and read an average of 770 wpm, or above the level of most successful executives and just below that of a trained speed reader.

Cut six hours off that total for discussions, disagreements, procedural maneuvers, oh and the fact that the House has to pass the bill without changes and send it to the Senate who must also pass it within the same 36-hour timeframe (before midnight on Friday, 23 March) to avert another Government shutdown. Even if the bill has broad cross-party support, a single dissenting Senator (say…Rand Paul or John McCain?) can force a procedural halt that delays any vote.

And that just addresses the mechanics. It doesn’t even begin to address the contents of the bill.

Forgive me if I don’t hold my breath.