Unread 1000 Page Bills Are the Death of Representative Government

So says Mark Steyn:

Thousand-page bills, unread and indeed unwritten at the time of passage, are the death of representative government. They also provide a clue as to why, in a country this large, national government should be minimal and constrained. Even if you doubled or trebled the size of the legislature, the Conyers conundrum would still hold: No individual can read these bills and understand what he's voting on. That's why the bulk of these responsibilities should be left to states and subsidiary jurisdictions, which can legislate on such matters at readable length and in comprehensible language.

As for optimum bill size, the 1773 Tea Act, which provoked the Boston Tea Party, was 2,263 words. That sounds about right.

The Founders never intended a federal government that's as massive, bloated, and unresponsive as what we have now. States were intended to do most of the heavy lifting with the federal government providing for the common defense and a few other specific functions. We've really screwed up a brilliant idea.