It’s Sunday and that means that I’ve spent the morning reading various and sundry newspapers and watching the people flap their gums on TV. In the conduct of this normally useless but sometimes edifying exercise I’ve had a revelation that will save everyone a lot of head scratching and angst: I have discovered what’s really wrong with the Federal Government. This post might be kinda long as I want to document this exciting story in some detail as it will likely end up in a museum soon.
See, I’ve just gotten over a week-long visit from the creeping crud. I missed our annual Thanksgiving visit to Richmond to see Sarah’s mom. I was well enough to go watch Osbourn crush yesterday but now Sarah was coming down with the crud. Anyway, the daughter and I went to Starbucks to get a coffee and then to ihop to get breakfast. While at Starbucks I picked up a copy of the Times. I know, I know, it’s a liberal rag but there is some really good writing in there from time to time. We brought back breakfast to the wife and we all watched the “Chris Matthews Show” and then the first 30 minutes or so of Meet the Press. After that, I perused the Times for awhile.
This revelation came to me while I was reading an interesting article in the Times about the push by the incoming republican chair of the house investigative committee. He wants to greatly expand the number of subpoena’s and investigations conducted into the government’s activities and expenditures. There’s a lot of talk in there about finding waste, fraud and abuse – always a good idea and from time to time it is actually necessary for elected leaders to take the lead in those things. However, recently it has more often been the baliwick of politicians that don’t really have any ideas but it sounds good so people vote for them. (In Virginia the usual target of these audits is VDOT)
The ugly truth is that Congress has made a mistake more common of State and local governments. Indeed, it’s a mistake that the City Council has struggled to avoid over the years and a trap that Congress, with all of the resources of our great nation at their fingertips, should easily avoid: they’re too involved. It sounds too simple but I’m telling you it’s true. The Congress is operating as staff and not as the Board of Directors to this great country. Indeed, it’s gotten so bad that we use subpoena’s and lawyers in attempts to corral spending rather than the Congress acting in their capacity as our national board and passing a budget that dictates their intent to staff. Many will argue that this is simplistic but my rebuttal is that it only works when it is just that simple.
If you disagree, please point out to me what is working so well in Congress that it’s worth keeping? The Congress routinely fails to pass a budget and the budget needs to be the primary guidance to the Executive branch and the civil servants in Washington as to what the citizens of the country want done. If we need to cut spending, the parties need to get together and pass a budget that cuts spending. It’s about governance, not parties being preeminent for long periods of time. Game-playing and compromising principals works for awhile but watch the Sunday talkies or read a conservative blog and somewhere mentioned on there will be the TEA PARTY.
Indeed, the Republican party has so severely compromised it’s principals over the years (and not in pursuit of our national interest) that it is in danger of being consumed from the inside out by a movement led by a woman who few (including me) hold in any regard. In a day when we have great choices like Barbour, Daniels, Romney and others, the Queen Bee of the party is a woman who couldn’t even tough out a single term in our least populous state. Sure, she draws crowds and writes books but so does Obama. Her vision of what the election is about is the same as an election for High School president. The election might be a popular contest but the stakes are so much higher. Despite all of that, the problem with the Tea Party is not its ideas. I find it hard, in principal, the disagree with many of them. Many of those I talk with echo similar sentiments.
My call to Congress is this: get out of every nook and cranny. Get together with the President and decide what the strategic vision is. Fight it out but come to some conclusion. You might not have much in common but some common ground has to be found. Make the decisions simpler, not more complicated.
After all, you can only crap in your nest for so long before it causes a problem…..
November 29, 2010 at 4:50 am
I often use this analogy: Congress is too busy looking at the trees to even see the forrest. BUT, they have to because they are so beholden to the special interests and the liberal media, both of whom care more and cause more of an uproar about chopping down a single tree than clearing an entire forrest.
Our Legislative branch (and Executive too, even worse but that’s another subject) lacks any strategic vision. Lacking vision, they focus on the nit noid details for which they are constantly nagged but lack the fortitude to swat away.
November 29, 2010 at 9:49 am
I think the issue with the Federal Government is it long ago decided that it wasn’t satisfied just doing the things the Constituttion gave it the power to do, and decided to see how far it could push itself into our individual lives. It’s trying to regulate things that were never intended to be regulated…by ANYONE except the individual. When you are trying to do everything, you will do everything poorly. We have religious fanatics trying to blow up airplanes and tree lighting ceremonies, and the Fed wants to regulate how fat our kids can be. Every other year, I read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”. Every year the Fed looks more and more like the government in Rand’s magnificient work of fiction.
November 29, 2010 at 10:56 am
Well said Andy. I often feel like a Constitutional scholar compared with our elected officials. BTW – off topic – but this just came across the wire:
http://www.businessinsider.com/federal-pay-freeze-2010-11
November 29, 2010 at 11:45 am
Andy,
Your post is all very true.
Congress has gotten to big for it’s britches. They long ago stopped working for us, and instead started to work for themselves. They lie, cheat and steal. They have outright disdain for anyone who questions their actions.
When we hear phrases like “It’s Kennedy’s seat” etc, there is a serious problem going on.
November 29, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Ten general rules, understanding that there are plenty of exceptions:
1. As soon as a congressman is elected, he/she is busy running for reelection. That is not a disparaging remark. Two years is a very short time period.
2. We want to keep our guys in if they are doing what we want. If we disagree with them we then start referring to them as self-serving so and so’s.
3. For anything a congressman does there is almost always a core of constituents asking him/her to do it. The congressman doesn’t really have time to do anything else.
4. When constituents are not driving the train, party leadership will typically drive the congressman’s vote.
5. A congressman will defy party leadership only if the congressman is in danger of losing a seat and his constituents are against the party leadership.
6. A congressman who is comfortably enscounced can affort to defy party leadership, but few are that comfortably enscounced these days.
7. A conservative congressman from a strongly conservative district will not care what the liberal media (eg Oberman; WAPO) says; attacks by that media will be worn by that congressman as a badge of honor (eg Bachman). A liberal congressman from a liberal district will similarly not care what the conservative media (eg Beck; Rush) says; attacks by that media will be worn by that congressman as a badge of honor (eg Pelosi).
8. Aggressive congressional oversight hearings will always be held when congress and the administration are from different parties. Always. Period. Take it to the bank. (When both are from the same party, oversight hearings are usually a breeze, except if the congressman needs to grandstand for the constituents back home like if a federal agency is authorizing a natural gas pipeline that is opposed by the congressman’s home folks.)
9. A “special interest group represented by lobbyists” is looked down upon only by those who don’t like the special interest. We tend not to condemn people who are fighting for what we believe is right, in which case they are on the side of angels. They are filthy lobbyists only if we disagree with them.
10. Lobbyists are merely people who are paid to deal with congress. In simple terms: If your receive a paycheck for spending more than twenty percent of your time convincing congress (through letters, emails, phone calls, etc.) to take or not take action, then you are a lobbyist, must formally register as a lobbyist, and must file quarterly reports. Some lobbyists are filthy slobs. The vast majority are subject matter experts without whom legislation could not be written.
November 30, 2010 at 11:05 am
Rich,
Great observations from someone who understands Aristotle: There’s the way things should be, and there’s the way things are. As someone who studies politics, I sometimes forget how little the average joe understands about our two-party system.
November 30, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Yet another good reason to raise a glass!
December 1, 2010 at 10:13 am
Many years ago in Civics class, Mr. Mallard was walking our young minds through the Consitution & Amendments. As he got to the Amendments, he used historical references to show how the worked or did not work as intended.
When he got to the 17th Amendment, where Senators are elected vs. appointed by States, he made a point as to how this was possibly the first crack in “States Rights” of the 10th Amendment as we ceded control of the Senate to the Federal Level vs. maintaing control at the State level. Many interesting examples were given (although clouded by time in my brain as to what they were).
Just recall his main point as I found it fascinating at the time, and still do.
December 2, 2010 at 4:30 pm
http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/11/17/2162170/
taxpayers-picking-up-tab-for illegal.html
What’s wrong with the Federal government?
Start with them not doing their job defending the borders
and making local government pay the price.
December 2, 2010 at 4:51 pm
http//www.fresnobee.com/indenial/index.html
Hopefully this link will work.
A very interesting series in the Fresno Bee.
December 4, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Mr Randolph,
First, thank you for the link to the series.
Second, I’ve been working on this issue for several years and though it is easy to blame the “Federal Government” for not protecting our borders, one has to take into account the role of local gov’ts & interests as well as state gov’ts and interests working with the Federal “SECTOR” to create a problem which is creating so much chaos for local governments to manage.
@Steve Thomas
Steve,
Rand simply replaces the tyranny of the state with the tyranny of the individual. It’s unfortunate that so many conservatives look to Rand as a model, as I mention frequently to people when I am discussing Rand, she’s really nothing more than a wacked out character from a 19th century Russian novel. While everyone can profit from her withering critique of the socialist mentality, the price one is forced to pay by swallowing Rand’s gruel is drowning in a dog’s breakfast of one’s own self worship.
Some novel cures for Rand’s Dystopian thinking are reading War & Peace, Moby Dick, and Brothers Karamazov, in no particular order.
December 5, 2010 at 1:47 pm
http://www.fresnobee.com/indenial/index.html
Illegal (“undocumented” if you prefer) immigration
is a huge problem across the country. It is
informative to learn how other local jurisdictions
are dealing with it.
December 5, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Mr. Randolph,
I prefer illegal. It’s more precise, though there are even problems with that term. ‘Undocumented’ doesn’t work too well, first the aliens themselves usually have documents, maybe yours, maybe mine, but they probably have some documents, and the federal government, itself; has the documents and access to the documents that could “document” the problem, but of course document manangement does not seem a high fed priority lately.