Washington's Entrenched Power

One of the major issues with Washington is the entrenched power of multi-term representatives in both the house and the senate. Representatives who are re-elected term after term often end up in seats of power such as “Chairman of the House Ways and Means” committee, the “House Budget” committee, the senate “Defense” committee or the “Health Care” committee. These powerful positions are key targets for lobbyist seeking to gain legislation or changes in legislation that are more favorable to their vested interest. The members of these committees, and not just the Chairman, are often the ones that end up in scandals revolving “working” trips to resorts in the Caribbean or some other luxurious place where they are wined and dined by the aforementioned lobbyist in order to gain that favor.

These positions also give power to their members over the rest of the congress. If someone wants their bill to make it out of the committee that it was assigned to then they will often have to give favors to one or more committee members, often in the form of their vote on some other issue, in order to ensure that their bill is not dead on arrival to the committee. This is why these committee positions are so coveted by members of congress. A position on a powerful committee almost instantly imbues you with its power.

This entrenched power is bad for our country.  It ensures “politics as usual” and prevents true compromise on the important issues of the day. The only “fix” for this to be bantered about is term limits for the congressional members. The idea being to limit how many consecutive terms a congressional member can serve before being forced out. After all, we have a term limit on the office of the president so why not the congress as well? The problem with this is that it would require a constitutional amendment to achieve and this would be almost impossible with the entrenched power that is already there. It is human nature to want to hold onto power once you have it.

I would suggest something a little simpler. It would still be difficult to achieve but if the will of the people was strong enough it could be done. This suggestion is to place term limits on the membership of committees. Force a rotation of membership on the committees to break these strangle holds on power. This would only require a “congressional rule” to implement rather than a constitutional amendment.

When our forefathers wrote the Constitution they wrote it from the point of view of those that had no power, no say in the government. They greatly desired to limit the effects of entrenched power on the governmental body. Unfortunately, once they themselves had power they immediately began to fall under its spell. We have been slowly correcting this ever since; the abolition of slavery, a woman’s right to vote, etc. Now it is time to correct it within the very halls of congress.

When Taxes Are Not Taxes And Cuts Are Not Cuts

 I hate half truths and double talk, it drives me nuts. And nowhere do you find more of it than in politics. Washington’s political parties feed them to us on a regular basis. They can’t seem to make single political statement argument without them. The most recent such drivel that has really irritated me is coming from the republicans.

 During the recent debt ceiling limit debates the republicans continuously expounded upon the fact that the United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the world at thirty five percent. This was one of the basic arguments that they used against raising taxes - any taxes at all – even in the form of removing corporate jet loop holes. According to a several studies, the majority of corporations pay little or no taxes. And even when they show a huge tax bill that money may never make it to the IRS. What these companies actually end up paying is not really known since they are not required to disclose this information. These corporations use various tricks to shelter the income that they earn from Americans in order to not pay their fair share of taxes. Of course, this gets it start by democrats raising the corporate tax rates to levels that would stifle any company’s ability to grow and compete in the world in order to support their favorite cause.
Then we have the democrats who have always loved to complain about republicans “cutting” their federal programs. The problem is that those cuts were seldom real cuts, which of course they don’t bother to tell you. You see, most programs within the federal government have an automatic increase in their level of funding every year. So if social program “x” got two billion last year then it will get two point two billion this year. When the republicans attempt to curve government spending by preventing this increase the democrats scream “budget cut”!

If you went into your job tomorrow and the boss said, “I’m very sorry but we cannot afford to give pay raises this year due to the economy” would you consider that a pay cut? No, you would probably be happy that you didn’t get a real pay cut!

Half truths and double talk, I hate it.

A Fix for Washington Corruption...

We all know that there are some serious issues of political corruption in Washington. There are always bad apples in any bunch. The corruption that I hate the most, however, is not even considered corruption. It is called “compromise”. You know what I mean. Senator X wants federal money to build a new stadium so he holds his vote as ransom on some important bill until the other senators agree to give him the funding. Senator X does not want his state to be effected by the new health care law so in order to get him on board the other senators agree to not make certain parts of it apply to his state.
This type of “compromise” is often illegal anywhere except Washington. Outside the beltway these actions are called “kickbacks” and “bribes”. And it is eroding our confidence in our government. The american people can never be sure who actually supports these laws or was just forced to accept them for something bigger. And those who truly supported it love to point out how those on the other side of the isle did as well, whether they actually did or not, because they voted for “it”.
These types of things are what we call “line items”. Addendums to bills that have nothing to with the issue at hand and yet the president is forced to accept them if he really wants the larger body of the bill. The other side of the isle often uses the fact that the president signed the bill as proof that he thought that particular line item was a good idea. George Bush’s signing into law the ban on incandescent bulbs is the latest example of this.
The republicans say that what the president needs is a “Line Item Veto”, or the power to veto each added line item of a bill individually. The Democrats say that it would put too much power in the hands of the president. Besides, the democrats continue, these line items typically only add 2% to the federal budget – “ah, no big deal”. This cost is traditionally known as “Pork Barrel Spending”.
This last argument only takes into account such line items as “$6,000,000 for Native American arrow production in Oregon”. There is no way to truly measure the cost to the country of many of the other line items. It also does not take into account the corruption aspects, either.
 Even though I greatly despise this devious method of operation in Washington, I do agree with the democrats that “Line Item Veto” power would put to much power in the hands of the president. The minority party might not be able to get anything done in congress. Every little program they lobbied for for their state could be veto’ed while the presidents party gets everything they want for their state and more.
There are better ways to fix this problem than by adding power to the executive branch. How about this approach?

1. Single issue bills only. No line items. End of story.
2. Add a section to the Federal Budget called the “Pork Barrel”.
3. Set the percentage of the “Pork Barrel” to 2% percentage of the Federal Budget (but no greater dollar amount than the current budget would allow)  + the percentage of decrease in the Federal debt year over year. This would give congress an incentive to decrease the debt every year.
4. Each year the final total for the Pork Barrel budget would be divided between the political parties in a ratio that matched the parties distribution in congress.
5. Each party would have no say in how the other party  divvies out their share. Each party would have to fight within itself for each member to get what they want.

This would put an end to the bribery of Washington “compromise”, give incentive for congress to reduce the debt each year, and prevent the “he supported” “she supported” BS that so muddies the political waters