Eighth Grade Clarity Committees in Government and Corporate America
After reading Mike Huckabee's Tax Plan is Brilliant in Slate Magazine, I began to ask myself, how do I know if his plan is brilliant? How do I know if any plan is brilliant when I cannot tell you much about our current tax code, most of the contracts I've signed, anything about the irritating little fees on my cell phone, credit card, cable, electric, gas bills etc? Mike Huckabee's plan may sound good now because the article is written so that it is easily understood. However, once it is approved and implemented it will take ten Rhodes Scholars to interpret it.
Before we change anything, why can't "We the People" demand every American has a right to understand what's going on now whether it concerns taxes, law, paying our bills or contracts? Why is it legal that a PhD is required to understand our credit card agreement and sometimes that's not enough?
The answer is fairly obvious. By confusing and frustrating "We the People", government and corporations know that most of us will surrender because we don't have the time nor the patience to analyze that which is designed to be incomprehensible...who does? Why isn't there more outcry against this?
The objective is clearly to make most Americans feel powerless and stupid knowing the most Americans will not advertise that they don't completely understand most of what they pay for, vote for, and depend on a daily basis. No one likes to admit their failure to comprehend the tax code, real estate papers, statutes, executive orders, affidavits, jury instructions, insurance contracts, investment contracts, 16 page credit card agreements (printed on tissue paper in microscopic type, written on the "twenty-seventh" grade reading level) and all consumer-finance contracts and anything and everything written in legalese.
We all know a confused American is very profitable, easy to control and therefore, very desirable to the few at the top who pull the strings. What would happen if every piece of legislation, every contract, credit card agreement, and basically anything legally binding had to pass through the Eighth Grade Clarity Committee (EGCC), made up of a diverse group of eighth graders of average intelligence, as a final test of clarity. If all the eighth graders appointed understand, it passes...if not, must go back for a rewrite until the EGCC grasp whatever it is being tested with little effort.
People like myself will be most appreciative and I think we would see a happier, patient, and most importantly, an informed America evolve.
