As an institution, the U.S. Congress has never been so poorly regarded as now. A well respected public opinion poll now shows Congress's approval rating is 9%, an all-time low. Ask your friends and neighbors, "What do you think of the Congress?" and the answers will be both definite and scathing. "Throw the bums out" seems to be the almost universal reply these days. Why?
In my former life, a long time ago, and far, far away, I worked as counsel for oceans and fisheries on the staff of the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. My area was NOAA, Fisheries, Maritime Administration, Army Corps-ports and harbors, and a few other odd bits like marine mammal protection and coastal zone management. I actually wrote some of the laws that regulate/protect the US marine environment.
So, from the perspective of a former Washington, D.C. insider, I offer these comments:
Most politicians are reactive. They are not self-starters. They do their legislative dance because someone-usually a constituent- but more often a constituent with money- asks them to do something or solve some problem. Most politicians are honest, dedicated, hard-working. They are not bad people, but they live in a very strange world.
Over the last 30+ years that I have watched this political dance unwind, it seems to me the concept of the "public servant" who goes to Washington to get something done for the folks back home has been replaced by a permanent political class of professional politicians who think they have a vested right to occupy their office. That is our fault. We dislike and disapprove of the congress but we keep reelecting our own particular congressperson. We are passive, spoon-fed, uninvolved and we permit these characters to run amok and just keep getting reelected. Example: Barney Frank and Chris Dodd both pressured Fannie May and Freddie Mac to reduce loan criteria to make home loans more accessible to lower qualified buyers. Barney and Chris are just following the Democratic party line--they are sensitive, caring, good to the poor and want to help the downtrodden. Oh, and they want to increase the reach of government and make more people dependant on government, because that gets them reelected. So, under legislative pressure, federal insurance underwriting standards for residential loans (backed by Freddie and Fannie) got real loose, and some lenders started giving 125% of equity "liar loans" to anyone with a pulse. Why not? The loans were insured and before the ink on the loan documents was dry, the bank could bundle them with other loans and sell them. Other Wall Street "Masters of the Universe" came up with the idea of selling insurance to cover these bundles of risky loans--called mortgage backed derivatives--and big institutional investors bought them by the billions. Everybody made money. There was no Treasury or SEC oversight of "mortgage backed derivative securities" because the Wall Street types like Paulson believed the market would correct any excesses. And so we get a crash that takes trillions of dollars of value out of middle-class Americans retirement accounts, 401K's and IRA's; bankrupt's the country and throws between 15 and 20 million people out of work. No one, except we sheep, paid much of a price. No one went to jail. Chris Dodd retired, but Barney Frank got reelected. Wall Street bonuses are at all time highs.
But I digress. It takes so much money now to run for office that any statewide office, even in a backwater state like mine (Washington) costs millions. Where is this money spent? TV and Radio advertising, grassroots activists, more advertising, social media, more advertising. The next Presidential campaign is expected to cost each side a billion dollars (yes, with a b, billion).
What can be done to "take back our government" -- IMHO, two things: First, strict and absolute term limits. We have to end the control of our political process by career politicians who only care about their own reelections. Second, public financing of statewide and national campaigns--I hate this idea, but I have come to believe it is the only way to get the influence of big money out of our politics. I would limit the campaign season to some reasonable time like 4 months for national office, less for states, and make the networks (who all broadcast over public frequencies that belong to the people) give some amount of free air time to candidates. In other words, take the huge need for media money out of the equation and the candidates will be less beholden to big money donors. Oh, and if reelection campaign advertising were not such a big revenue item to the TV and other media outlets, would the news divisions of our networks and newspapers be a little more critical of elected officials? A little less cozy with the boys downtown? You bet.
One other reform: public employee unions should not be allowed to collect any money from their members to contribute directly or indirectly to political candidates. Talk about putting the fox in charge of the hen house, letting public employee unions control who gets elected, as they do in many state and local elections, is one root cause of our unsolved public debt crisis.
One final comment: Our whole governmental structure, from the local township to the federal government is broke. The feds borrow 40 cents of every dollar they spend, print money with wild abandon and let tomorrow worry about the consequences. Inflation, anyone? And it's getting much, much worse. The politicians love to spend our money, but it's also true that we Americans want more government that we are willing to pay for. None of these reforms will make any difference at all unless the American people, ordinary citizens, realize that we are the "shareholders of this enterprise called America, and we are responsible to clean up the mess we have allowed those idiots in Congress to make.
At least, that's how it looks from where I sit.
Greg Dahl.
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