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SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING ON

PLAIN LANGUAGE IN PAPERWORK -

THE BENEFITS TO SMALL BUSINESS

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONTRACTING AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF 

REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 26, 2008

Serial Number 110-73

Printed for the use of the Committee on Small Business

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York, Chairwoman 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

CHARLIE GONZA ́ LEZ, Texas 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

RAUL GRIJALVA, Arizona 

MICHAEL MICHAUD, Maine 

MELISSA BEAN, Illinois 

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas 

DAN LIPINSKI, Illinois 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

BRUCE BRALEY, Iowa 

YVETTE CLARKE, New York 

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

MAZIE HIRONO, Hawaii 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio, Ranking Member 

ROSCOE BARTLETT, Maryland 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

TODD AKIN, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

MARILYN MUSGRAVE, Colorado 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

LYNN WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

DAVID DAVIS, Tennessee 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida

MICHAEL DAY, Majority Staff Director 

ADAM MINEHARDT, Deputy Staff Director 

TIM SLATTERY, Chief Counsel 

KEVIN FITZPATRICK, Minority Staff Director

Subcommittee on Contracting and Technology

BRUCE BRALEY, IOWA, Chairman 

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin 

YVETTE CLARKE, New York 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

DAVID DAVIS, Tennessee, Ranking 

ROSCOE BARTLETT, Maryland 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

TODD AKIN, Missouri 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma

(II) 

C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Page

Braley, Hon. Bruce .................................................................................................. 1

Davis, Hon. David .................................................................................................... 3

WITNESSES

PANEL I: 

Cox, Hon. Christopher, Chairman, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission 4

PANEL II: 

Romasco, Mr. Robert, AARP ................................................................................... 10

McCracken, Mr. Todd, National Small Business Association .............................. 11

Hall, Mr. Keith, National Association for the Self-Employed .............................. 13

Cheek, Dr. Annetta, Center for Plain Language ................................................... 15

Grundmeyer, Ms. Christine, Auxi Health Services, on behalf of the National 

Association for Home Care and Hospice and the Iowa Alliance in Home 

Care ....................................................................................................................... 18

APPENDIX 

Prepared Statements: 

Braley, Hon. Bruce .................................................................................................. 31

Davis, Hon. David .................................................................................................... 33

Cox, Hon. Christopher, Chairman, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission 34

Romasco, Mr. Robert, AARP ................................................................................... 40

McCracken, Mr. Todd, National Small Business Association .............................. 47

Hall, Mr. Keith, National Association for the Self-Employed .............................. 51

Cheek, Dr. Annetta, Center for Plain Language ................................................... 56

Grundmeyer, Ms. Christine, Auxi Health Services, on behalf of the National 

Association for Home Care and Hospice and the Iowa Alliance in Home 

Care ....................................................................................................................... 65

(III) 

(1)

SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING ON PLAIN 

LANGUAGE IN PAPERWORK - THE 

BENEFITS TO SMALL BUSINESS 

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON

CONTRACTING AND TECHNOLOGY

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 2:00 p.m., in Room 2360 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bruce Braley [chairman of 

the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Braley, Cuellar, Clarke and Davis. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN BRALEY 

Chairman BRALEY. I call this meeting to order to address plain 

language in paperwork, the benefits to small business. 

I want to thank you all for coming today. 

Small businesses in this country are struggling in a flood of 

paper work, and the tide continues to rise. Both the volume and 

complexity of paper work is increasing, and it is hurting our nation’s entrepreneurs. 

Communications from federal entities are often confusing and 

difficult for small businesses to understand. Agencies such as the 

Small Business Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and 

the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have complicated 

forms and instructions that contribute to the paper work burden, 

which is costing entrepreneurs nearly $50 an hour. It doesn’t have 

to be this way. 

If the goal of these communications is to produce results and establish guidelines, the government needs to account for the audience. Too often government bureaucrats issue these forms and 

paper work with no thought if anyone will be able to understand 

them. This growing problem exists not only at the federal level, but 

also at the state level as well. 

This has caused many states to take action, and they have successfully implemented plain language policies for their administrative communications. I believe that implementing a federal plain 

language policy could greatly reduce the burdens that small businesses face in dealing with this growing volume of paper work. 

Convoluted government communications place major burdens on 

small firms. According to the National Federation of Independent 

Businesses, small businesses cite unclear and confusing instructions as being the most common paperwork problem. That is one 

2

reason why I introduced H.R. 3548, the Plain Language in Government Communications Act. This legislation will reduce the paperwork burdens on small businesses by promoting clear communications from the federal government that entrepreneurs and the public can understand. 

The bill requires executive agencies to use plain language in any 

document relevant to obtaining a benefit or service, including a letter, publication, form, notice or instruction. 

On January 29th, the Subcommittee on Information, Police, Census and National Archives of the Government Oversight and Reform Committee reported the legislation favorably to the full Committee. The act requires the federal government to write in a clear 

manner that it follows the best practices of plain language writing. 

The federal plain language guidelines, which I hold in my hand, 

provide an outline for these best practices. Plain language applies 

to more than just words. It involves many aspects of documents, 

such as easy to read design features and logical organization. 

These changes mean those agencies that create the greatest burden must enact reforms. The IRS obviously is one of the top offenders. The complexity of IRS forms and instructions is costly for our 

nation’s entrepreneurs. According to NFIB, the average cost of tax 

related paperwork and record keeping for small business per hour 

is $74.24. Small businesses are facing more tax forms, longer instructions, and tax returns that are increasingly complex. 

According to OMB, the IRS accounts for approximately 78 percent of the total federal information collection burden. The use of 

plain language by the Internal Revenue Service could significantly 

reduce the burden that small businesses face in complying with tax 

regulations. 

Medicare is another area in which complexity is posing a problem. Doctors and other health care providers continue to struggle 

with increasingly complex medicare rules and regulation. GAO has 

reported that the information given out by CMS regarding these 

regulations is often difficult to use, out of date, inaccurate, and incomplete. According to GAO, Medicare bulletins to physicians are 

often poorly organized and contain dense legal language. 

It is apparent that convoluted language is harming U.S. competitiveness in a global economy. The most recent global competitiveness report issued by the world economic forum identified our nation’s complex tax regulations as being the second most problematic 

factor for doing business in the United States. 

It is my hope that the use of plain language will reduce this 

problem. Small business owners do not have extensive resources to 

handle paper work. So any time they spend to wrestle with complex government forms and documents keeps them away from operating their businesses. 

Last year, OMB found that the overall national paperwork burden increased nearly 700 million hours from fiscal year 2005 to fiscal year 2006 alone. The use of clear, easy to understand language 

in government paperwork could substantially reduce burdens on 

small businesses and provide for a more level playing field. The 

less time small businesses spend on paperwork, the more time they 

can dedicate to growing their business, creating job, and contributing to economic growth. 

3

I have been a passionate advocate of plain language drafting for 

25 years. When I was a young lawyer just starting my practice, the 

Iowa Supreme Court adopted plain language requirements for use 

in jury instructions in the State of Iowa because they recognized 

that jurors hearing information about the legal rules they were to 

follow and apply to the facts of the case were having great difficulty understanding basic legal concepts. 

And I have spoken to young lawyers and aging lawyers for 25 

years about the need to communicate more effectively in both their 

written communications and their verbal communications. So this 

is a passion that I brought with me to Congress, and I am very, 

very excited to see the interest that this topic has created because 

I think it would have an enormous impact on reducing the cost to 

the federal government. 

So I would like to thank all of our witnesses today for coming to 

the Committee and sharing their views on this important issue, 

and I would like to yield at this time to my friend, Ranking Member Davis for his opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. DAVIS 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Good afternoon. I would like to thank you, Chairman Braley, for 

holding this hearing. I appreciate the witnesses coming here to testify for us today. I will keep my opening remarks brief. 

I am sure there are people who have read the Federal Regulations and said, ‘‘Gee, that is plain and easy to read.’’ I am not one 

of those people. As a small business owner myself, I know first 

hand that a quick perusal of the Federal Register is enough to 

make a wooden man crazy. 

Federal agencies write thousands of regulations every year, and 

we are expected to comply with them. The sheet volume of regulations small businesses must comply with is a drain on the resources, and when those rules are written in complicated language, 

it only aggravates the situation. 

There have been many attempts to encourage the use of plain 

language in the federal government. However, it does not appear 

that any of them have been particularly successful. The information published by the federal government is supposed to be for the 

benefit of its citizens so that they can understand exactly what 

their government is doing. 

How can this be best achieved, by using Byzantine language as 

complicated sentence structures or by using plain language that is 

easy to understand? I am eager to hear the testimony of our witnesses. So I will end here. 

Thank you for being with us today to testify before the Committee. 

Chairman BRALEY. And with that, I would like to welcome our 

first witness to the hearing, the Honorable Christopher Cox. Christopher Cox is the 28th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange 

Commission. He was appointed by President Bush on June 2nd, 

2005, and unanimously confirmed by the Senate on July 29th of 

2005. 

During his tenure at the SEC, Chairman Cox has brought 

ground breaking cases against a variety of market abuses, includVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:51 May 01, 2008 Jkt 033615 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\CLERK SB-LD\HEARINGS\TRANSCRIPTS\40233.TXT LEANN
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ing hedge fund insider trading, stock options backdating and securities scams on the Internet. 

Prior to joining the Security and Exchange Commission, Chairman Cox served for 17 years in Congress where he held a number 

of positions of leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Welcome home. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER COX, 

CHAIRMAN, U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION 

Mr. COX. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Davis. It is a privilege to be here to testify on an issue that I, too, 

am passionate about. 

You are, of course, champions of small business here on this 

Committee, and with this topic in this area you have really hit the 

jackpot. There is nothing more important, Mr. Chairman, than reducing the cost for small business and for consumer customers. It 

is a great opportunity. 

The time and money that is wasted on translating legalese into 

plain English is dead weight economic loss. It benefits no one and 

it harms millions of consumers who pay for it. 

Of course, while you are leaders in this effort, you are not the 

first mavericks in Congress to take up the battle for clearly written 

legal rules. In fact, the very first reported appearance of the word 

‘‘gobbledygook’’ was in 1944 when it was coined by a Congressman 

whose name was Maverick. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. COX. U.S. Representative Maury Maverick was a Texas 

Democrat who wrote a memo that banned all ‘‘gobbledygook language’’ from his office. He said he made up the word to imitate the 

noise that a turkey makes. 

To show just how serious he was about plain English, he added 

in his memo, ‘‘anyone using the words ‘activation’ or ‘implementation’ will be shot. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. COX. At the SEC, we have more modest penalties in store 

both for our staff and for public offenders, but we are dead serious 

about plain English. That is because it is our job to be the investor’s advocate. Investors deserve precise and clearly written rules 

that help them to quickly focus on what is important in making financial decisions. 

Using plain English respects the fact that investors are busy people. It lets them use their time more productively. Clearly presented information also makes our markets more efficient by improving the process of price discovery on our security exchanges. 

The SEC has many plain language initiatives underway. Our 

plain English requirements now apply to both offering documents 

and periodic reporting by public companies. They apply to mutual 

fund disclosure, and they apply to our own communications to the 

public. 

It is the sad truth that our government’s laws and rules are not 

only mostly written by lawyers, but seemingly they are mostly 

written for the benefit of lawyers. This makes compliance with the 

laws more expensive because people who have to follow the laws 

and the rules need to hire lawyers to find out what they mean. 

5

But legalese does more than just waste time and money. When 

laws and rules are hard to understand, it is more likely that people 

who are trying to comply are simply unable to do so. 

There is nowhere that certainty in the law is more important 

than in small business. Every day small businessmen and women 

across the country execute make or break business decisions in 

tough, competitive circumstances that depend upon knowing what 

the legal rules are. Small business people who are working hard 

each day to create the goods and services that their communities 

demand need to know how to navigate in a sea of regulation, and 

we owe it to them to provide a clear answer. 

At the SEC we are taking plain English to the next level. In addition to using plain language in our writing, we are directly helping people to understand the rules and the laws that we administer. As one part of this effort, we have published the SEC’s Plain 

English Handbook, and we are reaching out to small businesses 

and investors and anyone who wants help with understanding the 

laws that we administer and our rules. 

One place that we are doing this is in one of the fastest growing 

segments of the securities industry, the investment advisory industry. In the past three years almost 4,000 new advisers, most of 

them small businesses, have registered with the SEC for the first 

time. Our experience has shown that these newly registered firms 

may not be familiar with what’s required of them under the Investment Advisers Act. 

So last summer we translated the Investment Advisers Act into 

plain English, and we e-mailed it to all of the investment advisers. 

We also keep it up on our public web site. One of the best features 

of this new plain English translation of the law is that each plain 

English description is hyperlinked to the actual law text so that it’s 

easy to click back and forth and understand what a particular provision of the law means. 

We are also working hard to insure that the materials that publicly registered companies provide to investors are readable and understandable. We have some empirical evidence of the fact that 

most retail investors are throwing away the proxy statements, the 

10-ks, and the other SEC mandated disclosure documents that they 

receive in the mail. If your customers routinely throw your product 

away, you have got a problem. 

There can be many reasons that our customers are dissatisfied, 

but the most obvious is that they are busy people. Wading through 

dense legalese is not their day job, and ordinarily they just do not 

have time for it. 

If time is money, then poorly written disclosure documents are 

wasting one of the investor’s most important assets. At the SEC, 

we have noticed that public companies take a great deal of care in 

sprucing up their catalogs and their sales materials so that customers will be interested in buying their products. Doesn’t it make 

sense that they and we, the government, should take the same degree of care in making investor materials more readable? 

Our plain English efforts are focused on areas where consumers 

have the most to gain. So for retail investors, including many small 

businesses, that means mutual funds where nearly half of the more 

6

than three trillion dollars that Americans have invested in 401(k)s 

and similar plans is invested. 

Just a few months ago, the Commission proposed rule changes 

to make mutual fund disclosures easier to understand. Under this 

proposal every mutual fund would include key information in plain 

English in the front of the mutual fund prospectus. That will make 

reading a mutual fund prospectus far easier than it is today. 

Yet another example of how we are using plain English to help 

individuals in small business is our proposed new rules that require investment advisers to give clients a brochure in plain 

English. It would offer investors clearly presented information 

about the investment adviser’s business practices, conflicts of interest and disciplinary history. 

One further area where we are working to promote clarity is our 

new executive compensation disclosure regime. The Commission recently enacted new rules letting investors see clearly how the executives who work for them are paid, and the new rules explicitly 

require that the narrative be written in plain English. 

Mr. Chairman, these are just some of the many ways that the 

SEC is working to promote plain English to make life better for investors, for companies large and small and for our markets, but I 

also want to congratulate you and this Subcommittee for your focus 

on the importance of plain language across the entire government. 

And, in particular, I appreciate your interest in legislation such as 

H.R. 3548, the Plain Language in Government Communications 

Act of 2007, which of course was authored by you, Chairman 

Braley. 

As you know, there are similar efforts underway in the Senate 

led by Senator Akaka, who has introduced S. 2291. I am certain 

that small business would welcome a law that establishes plain 

language as the standard style of communication for federal documents issued to the public. It is heartening that the House bill, as 

you have mentioned, has already been unanimously approved by 

the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives. 

Your bill, Mr. Chairman, would require the use of plain language 

in any new or revised document issued by a federal agency, and 

that is certainly a good start. I note that it would cover any documents that explain how to obtain a benefit or service, including letters, forms, notices, and instructions. 

The next step, of course, would be to include regulations. I am 

certain that there are reasons for that modesty in the bill’s objective, but I encourage the members of this Committee to aggressively pursue the goal of plain language in regulations as well. I 

have been fighting for this at the SEC, and as you may see from 

our most recent proposed rules, legalese in rule text remains alive 

and well even at our agency. 

Finally, I would point out that the key to achieving real change 

in increasing the use of plain language is the adoption of objective 

standards for measuring whether government writing is, in fact, 

understandable. Fortunately, there is useful experience in the 

states that can guide us in doing this. 

Thirty-five states have already enacted plain language laws, and 

you mentioned that Iowa has such a law for jury instructions. 

7

Many of these laws have been quite successful in eliminating gobbledygook from consumer sales documents and insurance contracts. 

For example, Pennsylvania’s Plain Language Consumer Contract 

Act includes specific tests of what plain language is, and penalties 

for non-compliance. 

But Pennsylvania’s admirable law also shows the need for federal action because it excludes language intended to comply with 

federal requirements. Of course, feasibility tests are only a rough 

guide. The simple yardsticks are only a rough estimate of their 

writing. 

On the other hand, we’re talking about laws, regulations, government documents, and investor communications. It is not supposed 

to be Hemingway. So if we lose the capacity for poetry in the process of keeping things clear and understandable, that is a price that 

we should happily pay. 

Far better than any mathematical formula for measuring readability is testing a document on real people. That is why the SEC 

is planning to measure the effects of our efforts by talking to real 

investors. We will soon conduct a baseline survey of America’s investors to find out whether they find proxy statements, 10-ks, and 

other SEC required disclosure documents to be readable and useful 

- and if not, why not? The survey will also gather ideas on what 

would make these documents more useful. 

Mr. Chairman, the attention that you and your fellow Committee 

members are paying to this important subject is long overdue. 

Eliminating waste in government is an objective that everyone 

shares in theory, but it always seems difficult to find good opportunities. Here is an outstanding opportunity to achieve enormous 

savings for both small businesses and consumers without any countervailing loss of government interest. In fact, the government interest is advanced as well by eliminating legalese in government 

writing, because when it is easier to understand the rules, more 

people will follow them. 

Thank you for inviting me to testify, and I am happy to answer 

your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Cox may be found in the 

Appendix on page 34.]

Chairman BRALEY. Mr. Chairman, we had an opportunity to 

speak briefly before your testimony, and I was sharing with you 

that when I talked to people about this bill and informed them that 

the Securities and Exchange Commission has been at the forefront 

of plain language advocacy, many people are shocked by that because I think when most people think of the work that the Commission does and the nature of its complex financial circumstances, 

they would probably not assume that an agency like yours would 

be leading the charge. 

So I was hoping maybe you could share with us a little bit about 

the institutional obstacles you have encountered and that you still 

encounter in trying to make this something that the entire agency 

embraces as something that is good for investors. It is good for the 

companies that you are regulating, and it is good for the consumers. 

8

Mr. COX. Well, I suppose that one reason that people react as 

you suggest they do when you mention that the SEC is leading the 

effort for plain language is that these days when they think of the 

SEC they may think first of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Of course, the 

Sarbanes-Oxley Act was our handiwork here in the Congress, 

something that the SEC administers, but regardless of what everyone thinks of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, no one would say it’s Hemingway. 

Translating legislative language into plain English is something 

that either the government can help with or not, but it has to be 

done. People who are trying to understand what they are supposed 

to do have to go through the exercise of taking the convoluted 

legalese and turning it into something actionable. They have to be 

able to tell their employees what to do. The customers, if it involves 

a contract or some closure that goes to them, likewise have to 

translate it into something that has relevance or meaning to them. 

We live in a nation of over 300 million people. For many of them, 

English is not even their first language, but for all of them, except 

a small percentage with lawyers among them, legalese is their second language or further down the list. 

So I think it’s just absolutely vitally important for an agency 

such as the SEC, which is focused on being the investor’s advocate 

to take that burden up ourselves, and that is why we are doing 

this. We are a lawyer-centric agency, however. You asked what are 

the institutional obstacles. That is the biggest one. There are a lot 

of lawyers writing for lawyers. Since the lawyers can all understand it much more easily, it ultimately becomes a shorthand for 

them. They do not always see the need, and so it requires a constant refocusing on who the customer is and what is the point of 

all of this disclosure regime. 

Chairman BRALEY. Well, after being here for just one year, it became apparent to me that this is a city that is run by people under 

the age of 30, many of whom have excellent educations. A number 

of them have legal educations, and I think one of the obstacles is 

trying to convince them that that education will not be put to 

waste if they focus on plain language drafting. 

One of the things that is mentioned in your excellent SEC Plain 

Language Handbook is this quote. ‘‘Lawyerisms are words like a 

’aforementioned,’ ’whereas,’ ’res jeste,’ and ’hereinafter.’ They give 

writing a legal smell, but they carry little or no legal substance.’’

And the problem is that these words clog up many of the publications that agencies send out for people to use around this country 

in a variety of settings, and they become real barriers to effective 

understanding of what the intent of those communications are. So 

what type of advice do you have for other agencies in terms of trying to implement plain language techniques and how they communicate? 

And I would also like to point out that there is nothing that bars 

a federal agency from voluntarily implementing plain language as 

part of its communications philosophy. 

Mr. COX. I think that is the important point. We need legislation 

here to bring the people along who are unwilling, but we do not 

need legislation to get anyone who wants to be part of this movement. In the government there are a lot of public-spirited people 

9

who understand that we are here to serve who would like to get 

moving with this right away. 

Any federal worker that has on his or her desk Microsoft Word 

already has a tool that they can run what they are writing through 

to determine the level of readability. Flesch Reading Ease Score is 

referring to an algorithm developed by a lawyer named Flesch who 

was also a professional writer by training, and who earned his 

Ph.D. at Columbia University for developing this test. It is one of 

these mechanical tests, so it gets some people’s back up to have to 

expose their writing to it, but I ran my testimony today through 

the test and found that it would comply with the state laws governing insurance contracts that are measured by the Flesch Reading Ease Score because typically they require a minimum score of 

40 to 50 on the 100 point scale. I came in at just under 49 today. 

Chairman BRALEY. Well, congratulations, and with that, we do 

have votes pending. So I would like to yield to my colleague and 

let him ask any questions that he might have for you. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Commissioner, for being here. Thank you 

for your service in the Congress as well, and since we do have votes 

pending, I am going to ask one question. 

Has the Commission received comments from the public about 

the improvements in readability in documents? Have you gone out 

to the public? 

Mr. COX. Yes, we have. We have done this in informal ways so 

far. We have many, many sources of public comment, including as 

you would expect consumer help lines and that sort of thing. We 

have opportunities for the public to comment on our rules, and 

many of our recent proposed rules have had plain English requirements. So we have gotten formal comment from the public in that 

way. 

But we want to take this, as I said, one step further, and so our 

Office of Investor Education and Advocacy under the direction of 

Kristi Kaepplein, who is here with us today, is going to do a nationwide baseline survey and get very good measures of where we 

are starting and, therefore, measures of whether we are improving 

down the road. 

Chairman BRALEY. Well, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you so 

much for coming and sharing some time with us today, and I would 

hope that if the Committee has additional questions or inquiries 

about the practices at your agency that we could continue to work 

with you and your staff and follow up with some other questions 

that we might have about other agencies might practically benefit 

from the leadership example of your agency. 

Mr. COX. Thank you, and thank you and your Committee members for your excellent leadership. 

Chairman BRALEY. And I would like to inform our second panel 

that unfortunately we are in the late states of a vote. It is a series 

of votes, and it will probably take around 45 minutes. So the hearing will be adjourned, and we will reconvene at that time and look 

forward to your testimony at that time. 

Thank you. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman BRALEY. All right. We are back for Panel 2, and I want 

to thank you all for your patience. When we head back over to the 

10

floor to vote, we never really know what is going to happen over 

there. 

So I am very proud at this time to introduce our next panel of 

witnesses, and I would like to begin on our left with Mr. Robert 

Romasco with AARP. He is a member of the AARP Board of Audit 

and Finance Committee and Governance Review Committee. He 

also serves on the AARP’s Pension Plan Review Committee. 

His employment experience includes service as Senior Vice President of Customer Distribution and New Business Development at 

Quality, Value, Convenience, the well known QVC Television Network, and also AARP has over 39 million members and is a leading 

nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization for people age 50 

and older in the United States, and I am happy to report, Mr. 

Romasco, that I got my membership application after my 50th 

birthday. 

So thank you very much for joining us. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT ROMASCO ON BEHALF OF AARP 

Mr. ROMASCO. We are delighted that we are still being very effective at getting you those things. Thank you very much. 

Chairman Braley and Ranking Member Davis, thank you for the 

opportunity to appear today to discuss the benefits of plain language in government communications with the public. This is an 

issue of particular interest to older Americans, many of whom have 

regular contact with the federal government, be it for veterans benefits, social security, Medicare, or other benefits and services. 

We commend you, Mr. Chairman, as well as Representative Akin 

of this Subcommittee and other of your colleagues, for introducing 

H.R. 3548, the Plain Language in Government Communications 

Act of 2007. We urge that members of this Subcommittee and, indeed, the full Congress support enactment of this legislation this 

year. It will improve the federal government’s effectiveness and accountability to the public by promoting reliable, understandable, 

and useful communication. 

Interest in making government documents clear has a long but 

sporadic history. We understand that as far back as the 1940s federal government employees have advocated for plain language in 

government documents. Yet the need for plain language in government communication with the public persists. 

Interest in encouraging plain language has waxed and waned 

over the past several decades. For example, in the 1970s the Nixon 

and Carter administrations encouraged greater use of plain language. And while interest dropped during the 1980s, it came back 

in the 1990s. 

In order to insure uniform progress in this area, AARP believes 

a statutory requirement for government agencies to write in plain 

language is needed. This should include a requirement that the 

agencies report to Congress on their progress they are making in 

meeting this goal. 

Some may believe the obviously desirability of using plain language in government communications makes such legislation unnecessary. Unfortunately, there is ample evidence to the contrary. 

AARP hearing every day from our members who cannot underVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:51 May 01, 2008 Jkt 033615 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\CLERK SB-LD\HEARINGS\TRANSCRIPTS\40233.TXT LEANN
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stand the dense, legalistic correspondence they get from the government. 

In most cases this lack of understanding is not the reader’s fault, 

but rather reflects the confusing writing style of the agency. 

Though I am tempted to provide examples of some of the most inaccessible government writing we have uncovered, I instead will 

refer you to our written statement as well as those of others. 

Sometimes these examples of government writing are comical, 

but the joke unfortunately is on the taxpayer. It is common sense 

that the use of plain language in government documents will save 

the federal government an enormous amount of time that is now 

spent helping people understand the information they receive. It 

will also reduce errors in people’s response to what the government 

sends out. It also will reduce complaints from frustrated citizens. 

In short, plain language will result in more efficient and effective 

government. Mr. Chairman, the goal of plain language is simple: 

make the documents the government uses understandable on the 

first read. Though the goal is simple, the benefits are tremendous. 

Others will testify with some very impressive statistics which will 

underline that concept. 

Finally, AARP respectfully encourages Congress to adopt the sensible and much needed legislation. 

Thank you. 

[prepared statement of Mr. Romasco may be found in the Appendix on page 40.]

Chairman BRALEY. Thank you. 

Our next witness is Mr. Todd McCracken. He is the President of 

the National Small Business Association. Mr. McCracken started 

with the association in 1988, previously serving as Vice President 

of Government Affairs. Established in 1937, NSBA is the oldest 

small business organization. NSBA’s advocacy touches more than 

150,000 companies around the nation. 

Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF TODD McCRACKEN, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL 

SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION 

Mr. MCCRACKEN. Thank you very much, Chairman Braley and 

Ranking Member Davis. We appreciate the opportunity to be here 

today. 

I can dispense with my introduction of the organization because 

which you did so ably, but as members of this Subcommittee well 

know, in addition to being a bedrock of our society and really the 

very embodiment of America’s entrepreneurial spirit, small businesses constitute the backbone of the U.S. economy. Small businesses comprise 99.7 percent of all domestic employer firms and 

employ more than half of all private sector workers. 

Between 1989 and 2003, America’s small businesses generated 

93.5 percent of all net new jobs. Approximately 4,000 new jobs are 

created every day by small businesses. Why is this important to 

note? Because these small businesses are the very firms that are 

most likely to be disadvantaged by the garbled and confusing communications they receive from the federal government. 

12

Perplexing paperwork and the oppressive federal regulatory regime are overburdening America’s small businesses. Unlike big corporations which have hordes of accountants, benefits coordinators, 

attorneys, personnel administrators, et cetera, at their disposal, 

small businesses often are at a loss to keep up with, implement, 

afford, or even understand the overwhelming regulatory and paperwork demands of the federal government. 

While the Plain Language in Government Communications Act of 

2007 would not directly address this dispiriting inequity as it does 

not address federal regulations, it would go a long way in easing 

the federal government’s demands on America’s small business 

owners. Lacking legions of paperwork soldiers, most small business 

owners are left alone in their battle to understand the letters, 

forms, notices and instructions they receive from the federal government. As you might guess, far too often the result is a slaughter. Forget death by a thousand cuts. Try a billion. 

In fiscal year 2005, the American public spent 8.4 billion hours wrestling with federal paperwork requirements, and $1.1 trillion 

complying with federal regulations. This burden was disproportionately borne by the country’s small businesses. 

This burden is attributable to more than the mere act of compliance, however. It is also caused by the bewildering language used 

in much of this paperwork. Small business owners are not dumb. 

They are simply not fluent in legalese or Washingtonese. The federal government’s proclivity towards arcane, ambiguous or simply 

incomprehensible language translates into billions of lost hours and 

dollars. This is money and attention that America’s entrepreneurs 

could be putting to better use, growing their businesses, for instance, or hiring more of your constituents. 

It is equally important to note that the effort to force the federal 

government to use the plain language in its communications must 

not be construed as an attempt to diminish, dilute or skirt federal 

requirements. Quite the contrary, the small business members of 

NSBA are of the opinion that clearer federal communications will 

ease compliance which naturally will increase compliance. 

It is not the goal of most small business owners to deliberately 

flout or infringe their federal obligations. No matter how dizzying 

the mass and magnitude of the requirements are, it is simply in 

their best interest to comply and move on to the next task at hand. 

When violations do occur, more often than not they are the small 

business owner’s inability to decipher what is being asked of them. 

In fact, 93 percent of the responses to a recent NSBA poll reported 

having trouble understanding a letter, form, notice or instructions 

they received from the federal government. 

Simplicity is the key. The simpler the letter, form, notice, instructions or requirements, the easier it will be for small business 

owners to understand and comply. Of course, easier and increase 

compliance not only assist small business owners and other citizens. It is also in the best interest of the federal government. 

In short, plain language is a common sense approach to saving 

the federal government and small business owners time, effort, and 

money. 

As I previously mentioned, the Plain Language in Government 

Communications Act of 2007 does not extend its plain language reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:51 May 01, 2008 Jkt 033615 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\CLERK SB-LD\HEARINGS\TRANSCRIPTS\40233.TXT LEANN
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quirements to federal regulations. Convinced that clearly written 

and precise federal regulations would carry the same benefits as 

plainly written letters, forms, notices or instructions, the small 

business members of NSBA eventually would like to see federal 

regulations written in plain or at least plainer language as well. In 

fact, 97 percent of the respondents to the NSBA poll I mentioned 

previously would support legislation requiring all federal regulations be written in easy to understand, plain language. 

Despite this exclusion, NSBA supports H.R. 3548. An impressive 

regulatory regime and mountains of mingled messages and jumbled 

jargon from the federal government are a plague on small businesses across the country, the very small businesses the country relies on for job creation and economic prosperity. Thankfully this 

plague has a cure, a cure that is plain to see and easy to understand. The small business members of NSBA believe that the Plain 

Language in Government Communications Act of 2007 is an important component of this cure and are pleased to support it. 

Once again, I would like to thank Representative Braley for his 

leadership on this important initiative and for the attention of this 

Subcommittee, and at the appropriate time I would be happy to answer questions. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McCracken may be found in the 

Appendix on page 47.]

Chairman BRALEY. Thank you. 

Our third witness is Keith Hall. He is a small business owner 

and a CPA and has been a member of the National Association for 

the Self-Employed, NASE, since 1990 where he works with the association’s Tax Talk Service. He also has his own financial consulting firm in Dallas, Texas. 

The National Association for the Self-Employed is the nation’s 

leading resource for micro business, and is the largest nonprofit, 

nonpartisan association of its kind in the United States. 

Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF KEITH HALL, NATIONAL TAX ADVISOR, 

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE SELF-EMPLOYED 

Mr. HALL. Thank you. 

Chairman Braley, Ranking Member Davis, I appreciate the opportunity to be here. To follow up on the SEC Chairman’s comments, I hope no one gets shot today because it is usually the small 

business guy. So watch out for that. 

Again, as you mentioned, I am here as the National Tax Advisor 

for the National Association for the Self-Employed, representing 

250,000 micro business owners across the country. The NASE is 

solely dedicated to the needs of micro businesses. 

I am very proud to be a member of the NASE, and though I 

think National Tax Advisor sounds really cool, in plain language, 

I am just a small business guy. That is it. I have a small accounting practice in Dallas, two CPAs, two employees. Through NASE 

Tax Talk, we have the opportunity to answer thousands of questions every year from small business guys just like me, and I can 

14

tell you with total confidence that we struggle with understanding 

government communication, especially IRS rules and regulations. 

It is difficult to see why anybody would oppose simplifying the 

language included in government communication, and I am really 

glad I have a chance to tell you how important this is to small 

business. 

The bill H.R. 3548 is way overdue and is a welcome sign of relief. 

Even though I am a CPA, I still struggle with some of the forms 

and publications required to complete a tax return. There are over 

1.4 million words in the tax code, and I think that is about three 

times as many as in the Bible and maybe even more difficult to understand. 

Obviously, trying to simplify something that is so complicated is 

a big task. I will say in the last several years the IRS has done 

a great job in helping small businesses. They have dedicated significant resources to an awesome Web site and have made a number of tax forms easier to read. They have implemented an easier 

annual filing for payroll tax returns, Form 944. They have simplified Form 941 and Form 940 by using plain language. 

Overall, they have made a big difference for us, and all of that 

was made without so to speak an act of Congress: no new bill, no 

new deduction or exemption, no new code section, no decrease in 

Treasury revenue; only a commitment to making the existing rules 

a bit easier to understand and the forms a bit easier to fill out. And 

that is exactly what we are talking about. 

I think the IRS has done a great job, but there is still a lot left 

to do. The IRS itself estimates that a small business taxpayer with 

a 1040 and a Schedule C spends about 57 hours completing their 

tax return, and if they have a home office deduction or depreciation 

calculation, that number can approach 100 hours. 

Depreciation is a great example. Assume a small business guy buys a $1,500 computer for their business. No one disputes that 

there should be a tax deduction for that computer, but since it is 

an asset, the guy has to fill out a Form 4562, depreciation and amortization, in order to get to the deduction. Here is a two-page 

Form 4562, and here are 16 pages of instructions that go with the 

two-page form. 

Now, I am a CPA, but, man, that is tough to deal with. Fortyseven hours. 

Again, nobody disputes the fact that there should be a deduction 

for the computer. Congress has even recognized how important investing in the business is and has passed a law so that that computer can be fully deducted in the first year. The Section 179 deduction allows him to take a full deduction in the first year instead 

of over five years, which is great news. 

But the bad news is he still has to fill out the Form 4562 and 

attach it to the return. There is no future expense, no future depreciation, no carryover, but you have still got to fill out that form 

with 16 pages of instructions. This is the perfect example of how 

changes added to changes added to changes over the years have 

made things more complicated than is necessary. 

This could be fixed with one commitment to plain language. One 

form or publication written in plain language as required by H.R. 

3548 could make this problem go away. The business use is the 

15

same. The deduction is the same. The Treasury revenue is the 

same. The only difference is the small business guy now has 47 

extra hours he used to have to spend on the form now he can spend 

using to manage his business, to get a new customer or, better yet, 

to generate a new job. 

Now, this is an election year. In November we will choose a new 

President. No matter whom we choose, that person will have already told us, among other things, that they are committed to the 

creation of new jobs. They are all going to tell us that. It is my belief that the true effect of plain language and tax simplification is 

just that, new jobs. 

If every small business owner had an extra 47 hours, new business, new customers, new revenue, new tax money, and new jobs 

would soon follow. 

Again, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Davis, I appreciate the 

opportunity to be here. Thank you so much for your efforts that 

you are investing in my business. You truly are making a difference, and I know that is why you guys came to Washington in 

the first place. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hall may be found in the Appendix on page 51.]

Chairman BRALEY. Thank you. 

Our next witness is Dr. Annetta Cheek from the Center for Plain 

Language. She is the founder of the Center for Plain Language in 

Silver Spring, Maryland, and currently serves as its chair. She has 

been a leader in the plain language movement since her days as 

a federal employee and helped create the Plain Language Action 

and Information Network, otherwise known as PLAIN. 

The Center for Plain Language is a nonprofit organization seeking to simplify government, legal and business documents, and, Dr. 

Cheek, I know of no one in this room better qualified to address 

this subject than you. So, please share your remarks with us at 

this time. 

STATEMENT OF ANNETTA CHEEK, Ph.D., CHAIR, CENTER FOR 

PLAIN LANGUAGE 

Dr. CHEEK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member. 

This is a very complex world that we live in today, and it is getting more and more complex. We all face many legal, financial, 

health, security challenges, and we can’t as individuals understand 

all of the complexities that we need to understand to deal with all 

of those issues. So we have to turn to someone else for information, 

and the main place that we turn is the federal government. 

We rely on the government for information to help us address all 

of those issues. We pay the cost of the government, and I believe 

it should be our right to be able to understand what the government tells us. 

But instead, we get long sentences, convoluted language, turgid; 

some pilots we interviewed used the term Byzantine language from 

the federal government, and I will not restrain myself. I must read 

some examples. 

16

This is from the Department of Justice, and I do want to say for 

the lawyers in the room that some of my best friends are lawyers. 

So even though they wrote most of this, you know. 

‘‘The amount of expenses reimbursed to a claimant shall be reduced by any amount that the claimant receives from a collateral 

source. In cases in which claimant receives reimbursement under 

this provision for expenses that also will or may be reimbursed 

from another source, claimant shall subrogate the United States to 

the claim for payment from the collateral source up to the amount 

for which the claimant was reimbursed under this provision.’’

And what this means simply is that if you get a payment from 

another source for expenses that we also pay you for, we will reduce our payment to you by the amount that you got from the 

other source. Furthermore, if you already got paid twice for the 

same expenses, you have to pay us back. 

Here is the Small Business Administration example, and this unfortunately came off their Web site. The Web site obviously meant 

public consumption, public information. 

‘‘Seven (a) loans are only available on a guaranty basis. This 

means they are provided by lenders who choose to structure their 

own loans by SBA’s requirements and who apply and receive a 

guarantee from SBA on the portion of this loan. The SBA does not 

fully guarantee 7(a) loans. The lender and SBA share the risk that 

a borrower will not be able to repay the loan in full. The guaranty 

is a guarantee against payment default, it does not cover imprudent decisions by the lender or misrepresentation by the borrower.’’

And all that the public really needs to know about this is that 

small businesses must get SBA 7(a) loans through approved lenders, and that by giving those lenders a partial guarantee, SBA 

shares with them the risk that you may not repay your loan. 

And finally, one from the National Park Service Guidelines for 

Using a National Seashore. ‘‘When the process of freeing a stuck 

vehicle that has been stuck results in ruts or holes, the operator 

will fill the ruts or holes created by such activity before removing 

the vehicle from the immediate area.’’

I have to give the Park Service credit. This is their own rewrite. 

‘‘If you make a hole while freeing a stuck vehicle, fill the hole before you drive away.’’

[Laughter.] 

Dr. CHEEK. And that is from a regulation. 

This kind of language is not only annoying. It puts citizens at 

risk, and it makes it difficult for federal agencies to fulfill their 

missions effectively and efficiently. It discourages people from complying with requirements. 

One of our board members is a small businesswoman from Tulsa, 

and she asked 13 of her other clients, most of whom are also small 

business people, how they responded when they got a difficult government communication. Of the 13, 11 said they delayed dealing 

with it and ten said they may never fill it out at all because it was 

just too complex to deal with. 

So this is one example of how government communication costs 

the citizens and it costs the government. The government has to 

chase after those people to get them to fill out the forms. It has 

to write a second document to clarify the first document that no 

17

one could read, and I have to say having seen these many times 

that you usually cannot read the second document either. 

Sometimes the government even loses court cases over lack of 

clarity in language. About ten years ago, there was a case where 

the Immigration and Naturalization Service was sued over the clarity in a form, and the Ninth Circuit decided that the form was so 

obscure that it denied the people filling it out due process under 

the Constitution, and as a result the INS lost a huge number of 

document fraud cases because of the lack of clarity in the form. 

Now, the other side of the story is equally compelling. Plain language can benefit both the citizen and the government. Before I get 

into some examples, let me clarify what I mean by plain language 

because there is obviously a lot of misunderstanding. Plain language is audience focused. There are no hard rules except to be 

clear to your audience. If someone says if you use this plain language rule, such as the word ‘‘you,’’ you will confuse people. That 

person does not know what plain language is. The only rule in 

plain language is to be clear to your intended audience. Everything 

else is technique. ‘‘You,’’ pronouns, order of sentences, active verbs, 

those are all techniques. The only rule is to be clear to your audience. 

So let me give you just a couple examples of benefits. The State 

of Arizona has been in the news a lot lately because their Department of Revenue started a plain language initiative that spread to 

other agencies in the state, and here are just two of the examples 

that they gave for savings. 

One office saved $51,000 from phone calls that they did not get 

because their instructions were clear. Another office collected an 

extra $144,000 because their payment instructions were clarified. 

Veterans benefits has been a major leader in plain language. 

They have a lot of good examples from VBA. In this one case they 

rewrote one letter about benefits into plain language, and as a result phone calls to the office declined 90 percent, saving them a lot 

of time. 

But another side of the story, even better, was that more veterans applied for benefits because when they got the letter, they 

understood what benefits they were qualified for. So as a result of 

rewriting this one letter the government was able to better serve 

the citizens that it was supposed to be serving. 

There is even one cute story about the Hill, involving Hill staff. 

VBA paid a contractor to study the reaction of Hill staff to plain 

language and classical letters. They asked the staff to answer questions after reading either a plain language letter or a traditional 

letter, and it turned out that the staff could answer the questions 

correctly in less than half the time when they were reading a plain 

language letter. And unanimously the staff involved in the study 

said they preferred the plain language letter. 

So there is lots of evidence, and I have attached more to my testimony, and despite this evidence, however, most agencies find it 

easier to write in a bureaucratic style than to make the extra effort 

it takes to write clearly. The philosophy in the government is that 

the burden of understanding is on the reader, and actually the burden of understanding or clarity should be on the writer. 

18

Agencies will not change this outlook on life unless there is a 

piece of legislation like 3548 that requires them to do that. Mr. 

Chairman, the Center for Plain Language strongly supports this 

bill. We urge the Congress to enact it. It will be an important step 

on the path to making the government of the people and by the 

people truly for the people. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Cheek may be found in the Appendix on page 56.]

Chairman BRALEY. Thank you. 

Our fifth witness is a constituent of mine. I am very proud of 

have her here. Chris Grundmeyer is Vice President of Auxi Health 

Services in Oelwein, Iowa, in Fayette County. She is a registered 

nurse and works as a facility administrator at Auxi Health Services, which provides skilled nursing, therapy, and aide services to 

various age groups to enhance independence and wellness in the 

home. She currently serves as president of the board of directors 

of Iowa Alliance in Home Care and is a member of National Association for Home Care and Hospice. NAHC is the largest home 

health trade association in the nation. The Iowa Alliance in Home 

Care is a voice for home care in Iowa representing the vast majority of home care providers of all type throughout the state. She is 

testifying on behalf of both organizations, and my colleague to my 

right is somebody you probably have a lot in common with. 

So at this time we welcome you and look forward to your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF CHRISTINE GRUNDMEYER, R.N., ON BEHALF 

OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR HOME CARE AND HOSPICE AND THE IOWA ALLIANCE FOR HOME CARE 

Ms. GRUNDMEYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Davis, and Subcommittee members, for inviting me to present testimony regarding the use of plain language to reduce the paperwork burden on small businesses. 

As you said, my name is Christine Grundmeyer, and I am a registered nurse. I am the administrator at Auxi Health in northeast 

Iowa, and I am the president of the board of directors for the Alliance in Home Care, the voice for home care in Iowa. 

I am a member of the National Association for Home Care and 

Hospice (NAHC), the largest home health trade association in the 

nation. 

Home health agencies are generally small businesses. The average home health agency revenue from Medicare, the primary payer 

of home health services, is under $1.5 million per year. Medicare 

standards for home health agencies address quality of care, financial reporting, and benefit administration. These requirements establish both broad parameters for operation and minute details on 

record keeping. Any divergence from these standards subject the 

home health agency to sanctions, including the potential for termination of participation in the Medicare program. 

For the purposes of the testimony, I have highlighted two areas 

of regulation under Medicare where plain English is an elusive element. In fact, if there was a plain English requirement applied to 

19

these areas by Medicare in the same manner that the substantive 

standards of the rules have been implemented, it might take 100 

or more pages to define, redefine, clarify, and explain the meaning 

of plain language. 

OASIS, let me speak to OASIS. OASIS is the manner by which 

home health agencies collect and report data used for outcome 

measures, public reporting of quality indicators, and case mix adjustment in the Medicare prospective pay system model. OASIS is 

a series of questions that are used to assess the patient at the start 

of care and periodically thereafter. 

While all of the questions are included in a later quality of care 

analysis, only 25 are used in the PPS model to determine the case 

specific amount of payment. Fifteen pages of data, 76 questions occupy a seasoned nurse for upwards of an hour and a half. From 

this single statutory mandate has sprung 36 pages of the Federal 

Register on January 25th, 1999, and a series of promulgated regulations. At that level the rulemaking seems reasonable and simple. 

The payment model elements of OASIS bring an additional 45 

pages of guidelines that overlap, sometimes repeat those interpretive guidelines in the quality of care realm. 

Home health agencies must have two sets of guidelines, one 

which is this 800 page OASIS instruction manual open at the same 

time to insure the assessment and the payment standards are consistently met. 

While NAHC and the Iowa Alliance in Home Care have continually reported confusion with the sets of complex and lengthy 

OASIS guidelines issued, the most telling sign of the complexity is 

the issuance of hundreds of frequently asked questions which comprise about 300 pages and 12 different categories. These are just 

the questions that people ask after they have the manual teaching 

them how to fill out the paperwork. 

NAHC and the Iowa Association credit CMS for its willingness 

to assist the home health agencies to achieve consistent compliance. However, if CMS is continuing to ask frequently asked questions nearly a decade after the promulgation of the OASIS rule, the 

message should be that the rule needs a plain language adjustment. It is inconceivable that a rule that requires this level of interpretation and clarification can result in proper application and 

performance in the real world. 

Now I’d like to speak to the Medicare patient notices. These are 

the two main notice requirements applicable to the Medicare home 

health agencies. The notices included are the home health advance 

beneficiary notice and the expediated determination notice. Under 

the guidelines established by CMS, there are times when both notices are to be presented to the Medicare beneficiaries at the same 

time. 

Similar to the OASIS requirements addressed above, the beneficiary notice requirement includes statutory and regulatory components along with extensive interpretive guidelines. After navigating 

hundreds of pages of instructions, home health agencies have the 

dizzying task of determining which notice is to be given, when it 

is to be provided, what information is to be included in the notice, 

what action the agency must take after the notice, and how to document the entire process. 

20

While the HHABN and the expediated determination notice requirements have been in place since 2001, home health agency 

staff still today report confusion on how the process is intended to 

work. What seems to be a simple matter on the surface, services 

sought covered under Medicare has become a compliance nightmare because of the endless exceptions, clarifications, overlapping 

instructions, new forms, and challenges to common sense. Plain 

English is a foreign concept in Medicare patient notice realm. 

Home health agencies support proper notices to patients in 

changes of coverage or services. However, the current notice structure is its own great roadblock to successful patient notice because 

simplicity is sacrificed for a bureaucratic level of detail that nurses 

in home care have a great difficulty in managing while trying to 

provide essential care services. 

This concludes my formal remarks. I am happy to answer any 

questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Grundmeyer may be found in the 

Appendix on page 65.]

Chairman BRALEY. Thank you very much. 

And let me start with my first question directed to you. I fly back 

home every week, and every time I get off the plane in D.C. and 

go to get a cab, I get handed a notice that tells me what the fare 

rates are for the cabs that operate in the D.C. Metro area, and 

every week I read the same notice, and I have just stopped taking 

the notice. 

I feel the same way when I go get medical care and I receive the 

HIPAA privacy notice, and after a while, the original intent of the 

regulation to put consumers of health service on notice of what 

their rights are loses its impact because it gets lost in the huge volume of paperwork that health care providers face every day. 

What are some of the frustrations you hear from you colleagues 

about not just the intent of the regulation, but the burden of complying with the regulation and how that impacts the ability to provide patient care? 

Ms. GRUNDMEYER. Many of the patients that we see are sick, and 

they do not want to have to deal with this stuff. They just want 

to be taken care. So that is the biggest issue for them, is, you 

know, I do not want this. I do not want the paper work. They see 

it over and over. 

You are right. They do not read it. They take it. We put it in 

their folder. We tell them you have to have this. We must do this. 

So that is the biggest frustration. They do not read it. 

I did not speak to HIPAA today and how it affects us. We have 

lots of other things, and we redo the forms every 60 days. So it is 

not a once a year thing. I mean, the 15-page assessment is every 

60 days. It is a dilemma. 

Chairman BRALEY. Dr. Cheek, one of the things that I had mentioned earlier was the federal plain language guidelines, and you 

alluded to this in your opening remarks, but one of the things that 

you hear from people who are opposed to making change in the 

way agencies do their business is a lot of myths and misperceptions 

about what plain language guidelines will actually require. 

21

You made it very clear that the number one rule is to make sure 

you are writing for your intended audience, and also that the burden of making sure that that communication is clear is the writers, 

not the readers. That makes a lot of sense. 

What are some of the misconceptions that you have encountered 

that have been disproved by agencies and organizations that have 

implemented these types of guidelines in their everyday work? 

Dr. CHEEK. Well, having worked in four different federal agencies, I think I have heard them all. This material is too technical. 

That is a very common one. We have a great piece of evidence 

about that. The Johnson Space Flight Center redid their manual 

for contractors in a very plain style, and it covers very complex material about cryogenics and so on, and it is a wonderful model of 

how you can, indeed, take technical language and make it clear. 

And, in fact, I think the more complex the original, the bigger 

the burden you have to make it clear. 

And then there is one I heard from an attorney in the White 

House who deals with executive orders. I was trying to get them 

to make a commitment to plain language executive orders. They, 

of course, thought I was from outer space, and his comment was, 

‘‘No, we cannot use language like that. It is not magisterial.’’

That sort of set me back. I did not think we had a monarchy anymore, but apparently we do. 

And then, of course, from the attorneys there is ‘‘it is not precise.’’ There are a lot of examples showing that, indeed, it is more 

precise than bureaucratic language because it is clear and direct. 

That about covers the waterfront, and I do not think there is any 

case that we have seen that we have not been able to show that 

a plain language version is superior. 

Chairman BRALEY. Going back to your Johnson Space Center 

analogy, I cannot think of a better example to refute that point 

than the movie ‘‘Apollo 13’’ where a roll of duct tape was able to 

circumvent a catastrophic catastrophe and also was probably communicated in very plain language by the people on the ground. 

Dr. CHEEK. I am sure it was. 

Chairman BRALEY. Mr. Hall and Mr. McCracken, as an attorney 

practicing in Iowa for 24 years, I represented a lot of small business owners, and one of the things that always struck me was 

when I represented clients who had employees with commercial 

driver’s licenses and were, therefore, subject to mandatory drug 

and alcohol testing, and there would be very complex, precise regulations about what needed to be in internal policy manuals in order 

to comply with the regulation. 

And when my clients would bring these problems to me, I would 

just say to them, ‘‘Well, isn’t there some sort of example that the 

agency has published which is a template for how you comply with 

this requirement?’’

And they would say no, and so then they would hire me to draft 

a personnel manual for them to comply with these regulations, and 

it seemed like an incredible waste of time to know that this was 

being replicated in small businesses all over the country. 

What types of experiences do your members talk about in terms 

of the financial burden of complying with complex, difficult information that they are getting from federal agencies? 

22

Mr. HALL. As we visit with small business, micro business owners across the country, most of what we talk about is taxes, IRS. 

They still go back to the confusion on the forms themselves, again, 

back to whether or not the information is in plain language. The 

vast majority of micro business owners know the rules. They know, 

back to my example, they know if they have bought a computer 

that there is a tax deduction for that. 

But when they sit down at the kitchen table to try to go through 

the forms and the IRS form says they can expect to spend 47 hours 

completing that form, they lose track of the plain language that 

they are hoping is there to what is actually on those forms. They 

know the information. They know the computer is deductible, but 

they just lose sight of how to translate that to the form, and I think 

that is the main benefit of an emphasis on plain language can help 

with those tax forms. 

Chairman BRALEY. And before you answer, Mr. McCracken, it 

seems to me that a lot of these commercial software applications 

for tax preparation adopt the approach of working in a very simple 

progression to help people answer questions without having a long, 

detailed instruction sheet, which seems to get to the same point in 

a different way. 

Mr. HALL. I think that is exactly right, but again, what they are 

doing now is trading their own headaches and the cost of Advil at 

the kitchen table versus having to buy the software package or 

having to pay a tax professional to do the return. Either way, they 

are still out the financial resources. 

Chairman BRALEY. Exactly. Mr. McCracken. 

Mr. MCCRACKEN. I think you have really hit the nail on the 

head, and that is you have given a specific example that relates to 

one type of business. But the reality is there are examples just like 

that for every industry, whether you are a metal finisher or you are 

trying to run a 401(k) plan for your employees. No matter what it 

is, there are examples where the company, not only do they have 

to turn to an attorney or benefit administrator or some professional 

they have to pay not only to interpret the laws, but also to, as you 

say, give them that security they need even once they have adopted 

the law to make sure they continue to do it correctly. 

I think it is hard to overstate the burden that that places on 

companies because usually not only are they paying for professional help. They are before they get to that point struggling on 

their own to see if they can figure out what it is they are supposed 

to do, and they are left often with the sense that they think they 

know what they are supposed to do maybe, but they are not sure. 

When you are trying to run a business and you have a multitude 

of many things in your business environment with your employees 

that are full of uncertainty, to now layer on top of that what ought 

to be clear rules for them to follow are a whole new layer of uncertainty. So they wind up doing a myriad of things. Sometimes they 

hire professionals to tell them what to do and pay a good deal of 

money for it. 

Sometimes, as an example, as I think Dr. Cheek mentioned before, they put it off. They think, well, I will figure this one out 

later. And they may fall into noncompliance, and sometimes they 

23

just do the wrong thing because they take their own best guess and 

that is wrong. 

So it may seem like to some folks that this is a relatively insignificant issues, I dare say from the small business perspective it is 

an enormous issue, and if the federal bureaucracy can get this one 

right, they will have done an enormous service to the small business community. 

Thank you. 

Chairman BRALEY. Mr. Romasco, one of the things that was a 

vivid memory to me and, I am sure, to my colleague when we were 

campaigning was it was right after Medicare Prescription D had 

been adopted, and I spent a lot of time in community pharmacies 

looking at long lines of community pharmacists and long lines of 

your members trying to make some very complex decisions without 

a lot of guidance, with a very detailed statute that was still fresh 

and a lot of people were struggling to get a handle on it. Can you 

give us some examples of other types of problems that your members encounter in dealing with these federal agencies? 

Mr. ROMASCO. Well, I think that is a vivid one, and we spend a 

lot of resources ourselves in addition to the federal government trying to help our members navigate through that and, in fact, do do 

that on a yearly basis when it is time to re-enroll. So that is an 

effort that never goes away. 

The second thing that I think is important is that if we think 

about it, and I mentioned it earlier, everyone in this room will go 

through veterans, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. So this 

is a national issue. If we just got those agencies to clean up their 

communications, we create additional capacity for them to deal 

with what will be an enormous flood of folks dealing with that. 

It is like the circulatory system in your body. Sooner or later if 

it is not health and you do not clean it up, plaque builds up, and 

that is what happens with these regulations, communications, and 

I think one of the testimonies we saw, that people just slap, cut 

and paste, and really do not go back and say, ‘‘What am I trying 

to say? To whom am I trying to say it? And what is the real outcome here?’’ An effective, efficient government process which serves 

all of us and the taxpayers. 

Chairman BRALEY. Thank you. 

Mr. Davis? 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think we have all heard the stories, especially at this time of 

year. You call into an IRS office and you talk to three different people and you get three different answers. So even the people who 

work for the federal government cannot read and understand their 

own rules. It is certainly hard for small business owners and taxpayers to understand the rules. So we see that first hand. 

I would like to start my questioning with Dr. Cheek. Thank you. 

I understand you were a federal employee. So you got to see it 

on both sides. How much progress do you think is being made in 

implementing plain language in the federal government and how 

much more needs to be done? 

Dr. CHEEK. Well, it’s discernable progress. You know, I can see 

it in several different agencies. I think veterans benefits has made 

a lot of progress. NIH is trying. IRS is actually trying, but they 

24

have barely scratched the surface, and it is a very difficult thing 

to do. 

Plain language is not easy. The outcome looks easy, but getting 

there is very difficult, and one thing it requires is clear thought 

and we do not have enough of that in the federal bureaucracy. So 

you cannot write clearly if you are not thinking clearly. 

And a lot of people are afraid of it. It is change. It is big change. 

It is going to be very difficult to get there. So as I said, I think we 

have barely begun, except that people know they have heard the 

word now. Ten years ago no one would have known what you were 

talking about. Now a lot of people have heard about plain language. So, you know, that is the first step. 

And there are now enough examples that we could show people 

what it looks like. There are a lot of studies that give you data 

showing why it is valuable. So we are off to a good start, but there 

is just a tremendous way to go. 

Mr. DAVIS. Do you see any drawbacks modifying IRS forms? 

Dr. CHEEK. I do not see any drawbacks at all. It would make 

work for a lot of people and then in the long run it would save taxpayers a lot of time, and I think you would get, as we have heard 

here today, you would get people complying better with the requirements. 

Mr. DAVIS. Do you see any additional cost or, on the other hand, 

any cost savings by simplifying forms at the federal level? 

Dr. CHEEK. I think in the long run the cost savings will be tremendous. I think the process of getting there, there is going to be 

some costs. In the late ’70s, the British government started a major 

project where they redid a lot of forms. It was called the Forms 

Project, and when it was done someone in the government, and this 

is in ancient history now just about, but someone in the government said that if everything we did in the government was in plain 

English, we would save 20 percent of the federal budget. 

So I think in the long run there is savings of that magnitude to 

be made from plain language. 

Mr. DAVIS. Are documents or the instructions to comply with the 

documents the bigger problem or are they equally problematic? 

Dr. CHEEK. Well, they are equally problematic. I mean, I think 

when you get a federal form that is two pages long and you get 16 

pages of instructions, no one will read the instructions. What are 

you thinking when you write 16 pages of instructions? No one will 

read it. They will fill out the form to best of their ability and send 

it off. If it is not right, they will either not get a benefit; they will 

not pay the right amount; they might get penalized. The agency 

has to call them up, get it straightened out. 

It befuddles me how we have gone on so long getting in a deeper 

and deeper hole with government communication. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Dr. Cheek. 

Ms. Grundmeyer, thank you for being here. I am actually a respiratory therapist myself, owned the DME Company before coming 

to Washington, and when I owned that company I had about twothirds of my employees doing paperwork and about one-third of my 

employees taking care of patients. There is something fundamentally wrong when your business is to take care of patients and proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:51 May 01, 2008 Jkt 033615 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\CLERK SB-LD\HEARINGS\TRANSCRIPTS\40233.TXT LEANN
25

vide quality care and you have to spend more time taking care of 

paperwork for the government. 

Who in your agency is responsible for keeping up with all of the 

paperwork requirements? 

Ms. GRUNDMEYER. Well, the nurses themselves are responsible 

for the OASIS when they go out and do an admission for a new 

patient. They are responsible for giving the notices to the patient 

that they are responsible for the HIPAA; they are responsible for 

all of the things that we are required to give them at the time of 

admission, and then make sure that in the time frame required 

they continue up with that. 

I do have clinical supervisors in my office who make sure that 

the nurses are doing what they want to do, what they are supposed 

to do, not what they want to do. 

Mr. DAVIS. How much time do you think on a percentage basis 

does a nurse actually spend taking care of patients and how much 

of a percentage of time do they spend taking care of paperwork? 

Ms. GRUNDMEYER. I would guess that probably a third of their 

time is paperwork and two-thirds patient care. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Well, the Chairman has a very good piece of legislation in front 

of him. His bill focuses on plain language in forms and documents. 

Do you think we need to expand on that and actually include regulations published in the Federal Register? 

Ms. GRUNDMEYER. Oh, yes. The Federal Register is difficult to interpret, and you know, then it is not just the Federal Register. 

Then you have SAMAS and we have CAHABA, and we have Inspections and Appeals, and you have OSHA. We have, you know, 

the FDA. 

There is more than just one governing body looking over our 

shoulders, and everybody wants a different thing. There is a different interpretation. 

Mr. DAVIS. I am sure you have to deal with ICD-9 coding. 

Ms. GRUNDMEYER. Oh, yes. 

Mr. DAVIS. And I understand that is going to go from ICD-9 to 

ICD-10. Who does that for you? 

Ms. GRUNDMEYER. My clinical supervisors work with the nurses. 

We have spent probably about eight to ten days in the last year 

sending people to those classes to get much better versed at that, 

as our movement is to be paid by the coding being part of what 

they are doing. 

So, you know, we want to insure that it is right. It is stacked correctly now. I mean there is a lot of new things coming with coding 

down the pikes to home care nurses. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Now, if I could ask Mr. Hall just a few questions. If you know, 

how much do small business owners spend on compliance with the 

tax code? Do you have any idea what it costs an average small 

business? 

Mr. HALL. Well, again, just in preparing their tax return, the 

IRS estimates that it is 57 hours just to do their tax return. I think 

you had mentioned earlier or the Chairman had mentioned that 

that can be estimated at 50 bucks an hour, 75 bucks an hour. 

26

Those two numbers would be 2,500 to $3,700 just to prepare the 

tax return. 

That does not count getting their records in order necessarily, 

keeping track of those, researching those. It does not include sending out 1099s if they have a relationship with independent contractors. So the word I would use would be substantial. 

I do not want to add any other non-plain language to the conversation, but it is definitely substantial. 

Mr. DAVIS. How hard would it be for the IRS to revamp their 

forms to plain language? 

Mr. HALL. Well, I think it would be easy, and I say easy. There 

are still certainly issues of the complexity of the tax code itself. 

That is a much bigger issue, maybe more difficult to solve because 

there are so many competing demands on the tax code. 

So to begin with, the tax code is complicated. So by definition 

some of the forms are going to be, but they have proven the ability 

to accomplish simplification through the items I mentioned before: 

an easier Form 944, which gives the small business taxpayer one 

annual payroll tax return rather than having to do four, one each 

quarter. 

Even the quarterly payroll tax return has been revamped with 

plain English, and they did an extremely effective job at that. Even 

the 940 as well. 

So I think they have proven that that task can be accomplished, 

but I think Dr. Cheek mentioned that at some level people will not 

accomplish that task unless they are required to do so. Their commitment to small business through their Web site, I think they 

have done an outstanding job. 

But that was also somewhat reactive because as the Internet 

came along, it was demanded of them. That is why I am so encouraged with this type of legislation, because it is no longer reactive. 

It is no longer their choice. If they were required to have those new 

forms, any revamping of forms required to be in plain language, I 

think that is the emphasis they need to accomplish the task. 

Mr. DAVIS. Do you see any drawbacks from modifying IRS documents or forms? 

Mr. HALL. I cannot see any drawbacks. Again, back to the only 

issue would be the complexity in the tax code. Having changes in 

the tax code or complexities for larger businesses, problems that 

small businesses do not face, that may translate into another set 

of forms. 

We have a Form 1040 now is everyone can use. Over the years 

the IRS has developed a Form 1040A, which does not have as 

many lines on it, a little bit easier to do. They also have a 1040EZ, 

which is easy supposedly. That may be an option to separate some 

of the more complex issues for businesses in general from those 

issues faced by small business, and that could be a solution. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Mr. McCracken, how do most small businesses go about finding 

assistance in filling out forms and documents for the federal government? 

Mr. MCCRACKEN. Well, it is, frankly, I think, a little haphazard. 

I think many of them begin the process if they have determined 

they are not going to go figure it out themselves, they usually ask 

27

colleagues. They ask other business owners that they know. It is 

a relatively informal process, and then, of course, they often turn 

to the professionals they already have in their employ. If they have 

a CPA, if they have an attorney they already use, they obviously 

turn to those people as well first. 

And sometimes those people are able to help them and sometimes they can refer them to other places that can. 

Mr. DAVIS. Okay. Thank you. 

One last question first to Mr. Romasco. 

Would it be correct to say that simplifying language if not done 

correctly might not provide consumers with all of their rights and 

obligations? Could there be a drawback if everything is not put out 

there for the person to make a decision? 

Mr. ROMASCO. I think the real issue is plain language does not 

mean vague language. I think we go back to what Chairman 

Braley said, Dr. Cheek said. You can write plainly and be precise. 

It is a question of taking the time to understand the audience and 

being effective. 

Though I think the argument that plain language will leave 

something uncovered or exposure to liability or not every contingency. I think that is a false argument. I think we have seen in 

a number of situations both at the state and within the government and within business. You can simplify. You can make effective. 

And respect the reader. You know, we need to respect our constituents, our taxpayers, our citizens. They can read. They can understand if it is put in reasonable language. And, again, Chairman 

Braley made a very good point earlier. Plain language is not simply 

words. It is format. It is presentation. It is all the tools that we use 

in visually communicating instructions. 

And with all of those tools, we certainly can make the both complete communication, plain communication, and precise communication. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. A very good answer. 

And I yield back. 

Chairman BRALEY. At this time I would recognize Ms. Clark. 

Ms. CLARK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and to a ranking member, it is a very interesting and important hearing. 

Mr. Chairman, I know how passionate you are about this issue 

before us today since your days as a practicing attorney back in 

1983 when the IRS Supreme Court adopted easy to understand 

wording for jury instructions. Plain language is essential to many 

Americans because it gets the message across in the shortest possible time. More people are able to understand your message, and 

there is less chance that documents will be misunderstood. 

Having said that, I want to put a couple of questions before the 

panel and really want to focus it on what is happening with the 

Small Business Administration. There are regulations that you 

have identified that are the hardest for small business to understand, number one. 

Can you give a specific example of how SBA forms could be improved while collecting information required by law or regulation? 

And could you suggest one or more ways that the SBA’s Web site 

could be more understandable? 

28

Dr. CHEEK. Well, the only one I can take on is the Web site because I did look at the Web site extensively as I was preparing for 

this, and like many government Web sites, in fact, like most government Web sites, there is too much stuff on there. They seem to 

be giving you a dissertation when all you want is an answer. 

The SBA needs to think about why people come to their Web site 

and what they want. They do not want to come to the Web site to 

read a lot about SBA. Most federal agencies write their Web sites 

by telling the audience what they want the audience to know, and 

that is not why people use the Web today. They want a quick, short 

answer and essentially, as with most government Web sites, they 

need to sit back and think why are people coming to their Web site. 

What do they want? And let’s give it to them in the shortest, most 

direct manner. 

Ms. CLARK. I guess no one else wants to take on those questions 

right now. 

Mr. HALL. Well, the only thing I would add, from an SBA standpoint that is not where I spend most of my time in visiting with 

the members of the NASE. I have dealt with a number of small 

business owners who have requested financing through an SBA 

preferred lender, and just the paperwork itself via the Web site as 

well as the forms are just extremely complicated. 

I think as with IRS rules and regulations, at some point over the 

years new regulations have been added on top of new regulations 

on top of new regulations, and then one regulation may conflict 

with another regulation, and the verbiage had to be such so that 

the conflict could be resolved somehow. 

Now, what that means, I do not have any idea. I just spoke in 

non-plain language. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. HALL. So as with the IRS rules, I think the SBA lending, 

even at the financial institution that is a preferred lender, that 

communication with the small business could be dramatically improved by just an emphasis on plain language. 

And if that could happen and funds could be made available to 

small business, now we are back to creating jobs, which I think is 

what we are supposed to be doing. 

Ms. CLARK. Thank you. 

Mr. MCCRACKEN. I would just add to give some specific examples, which is what you asked for, I feel like I need to go back and 

review the SBA’s Web site and so forth, which I did not do in preparation for this hearing. But I do think it is worth saying that, as 

I think Mr. Hall mentioned, most of the regulations that directly 

affect the small business community do not come from the SBA. In 

fact, there is very little regulatory authority that has housed the 

SBA. 

But they do provide a great deal of information that ought to be 

as clear and as plainly presented as possible, and I am quite certain that like every other federal agency, they have a ways to go 

in that regard. 

Ms. CLARK. Well, thank you very much for that. And, you know, 

Mr. Hall, I understood what you were saying even though it was 

not plain. What does that say about me? 

[Laughter.] 

29

Ms. CLARK. Dr. Cheek, just another question. How do you reconcile the need to write one regulation for multiple audiences, for 

instance, the small business managers, accountants, lawyers, and 

government officials? 

Dr. CHEEK. Okay. Well, one thing that we would say in plain language is that you really cannot write one document to multiple audiences. You can write different parts of one document to multiple 

audiences, but having written regulations for a large part of my 

federal career, which was 25 years long, I have seen a lot of regulations where the agency would attempt to mix audiences. I have 

spent most of my career in Interior. So I wrote a lot of regulations 

dealing with land, and they would talk about landowners and they 

would talk about permittees who might not be landowners, and 

they would mix everything up. 

If you are writing to multiple audiences in one document, you 

have to be very clear to separate the requirements for each audience into different sections of the document. It is not that complex. 

It is an issues of organization. 

And a lot of government documents are just not well organized, 

but it can be done. 

Ms. CLARK. I yield back, Mr. Chair. Thank you all very much. 

Chairman BRALEY. Well, let me just conclude by commenting on 

what an insightful a panel this has been. One of the things that 

has been a priority for me for the past 24 years is studying persuasive communications, and when I was speaking about plain language communications to one audience and persuasive communications to another audience, it started to dawn on me that they were 

two sides of the same coin. 

And if the goal of our federal agencies is to be able to persuade 

consumers of information that they can understand and act upon 

information that they are being given to make critical decisions 

that affect them, especially small business owners, I cannot think 

of a more important topic than the one we have been discussing 

today. 

When you throw out the subject, plain language, it is not the 

type of thing that grabs a lot of news headlines, but when you hear 

from the witnesses we have had today about the monumental impact it can have on how to communicate more effectively with constituents all over the country, and to save the federal government 

potentially millions if not billions of dollars in the time federal employees spend interacting with people who cannot figure out their 

responsibilities, I am just very excited and optimistic about the 

possibilities that are presented by the things we discussed at the 

hearing today. 

And with that, Mr. Davis, if you have any concluding remarks, 

you are more than welcome to make them. 

Mr. DAVIS. I would like to thank the panel. Thank you for what 

you do in your communities. Thank you for what you do in America. Thank you for being here today. 

I yield back. 

Chairman BRALEY. And with that I would like to ask unanimous 

consent that members will have five days to submit statements and 

supporting materials for the record. Without objection, so ordered. 

This hearing is now adjourned. Thank you all for coming. 

30

[Whereupon, at 4:46 p.m., the Subcommittee meeting was adjourned.]

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