Lawmakers have had a key priority in the last nine months: to stimulate the American economy and provide relief to citizens facing the worst public health and economic disaster of the generation.

After nine months of bickering and infighting, Congress passed a stimulus package that included sweeping direct payments to Americans and payment protection program loans. Also included: more than 3,000 pages of miscellaneous legislation on topics ranging from horse doping to new Smithsonian museums.

Did anyone read the bill’s language in its entirety?

Odds are legislators voted without full awareness of the bill’s particulars, unable to hold back this inevitable eruption of said particulars after months on end of congressional constipation. In 2010, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., famously remarked that a bill needed to be passed in order to find out what was in it. A sobering observation.

To be sure, the latest stimulus is an attempt to bail out and mitigate an economy plagued by coronavirus, but it is, at the same time, an effort to shoehorn a variety of special interests into a bill clamored for by the public.

This style of lawmaking must end. Indeed, where is the bill demanding brevity and clear summaries of legislation?

The first round of stimulus funding in March was of sound intent but one that provided millions of dollars to corporations and entities that didn’t need it, while trapping many of those who did need help in miles of red tape and bureaucracy. This newest bill threatens to do the same, albeit on a smaller scale.

Sending blanket payments to Americans, with President Donald Trump crying for larger payments in the background, is a prime example of such waste. Simply put, some people need the funding more than others, whether due to ill luck finding a job or on account of having their businesses forced into bankruptcy due to the pandemic. Some businesses are less able to weather the economic storm than others. These are the places and the people needing and deserving financial help.

The current style of holding back all legislation and passing these omnibus packages is grossly unhealthy for our political system. It lacks transparency — in fact, it depends on a lack of transparency to achieve passage. And it is a black-and-white depiction of governmental inability to prioritize the struggles of American citizens.

Structuring the relief efforts more carefully to include better stratification based on need and keeping bills focused on individual legislative ideas would benefit America.

— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS