Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
What in the World is Congress Doing?
We live in a time where nothing is getting done in Congress. So I decided to investigate the role of Congress in our government of checks and balances, and see what they are supposed to be doing; what I discovered was more disillusioning than enlightening:
Congress has the power to:
- Make laws
- Declare war
- Raise and provide public money and oversee its proper expenditure
- Impeach and try federal officers
- Approve presidential appointments
- Approve treaties negotiated by the executive branch
- Oversight and investigations
Then I thought, who performs oversight on Congress when “oversight” (in the form of excessive investigations) is all they seem to be doing? The answer is: we do. That’s right; we get to vote out Congress when we don’t like how they are doing their jobs. Given that we still have 1.5 years to try to free ourselves of their ineptitude, is there something I’m missing? Is there no way to get them to do their jobs?
For now, let’s take a closer look at the power of Congress. The first power given to them is to “make laws”; in checking on their success at passing laws, I was not encouraged:
Ahead of the Memorial Day recess, and nearly halfway through the year, Congress has only passed 17 laws. Major laws that the 116th Congress has passed include reopening the government following the shutdown, a bipartisan public lands measure, and changes to Medicaid. Some of the other laws passed changed the address of a post office in Charlottesville, Virginia, created an award for classified school employees like security officers and cafeteria workers, and clarified the grade and pay of podiatrists in the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
Then again, is the measure of Congressional success the number of laws that are passed? After all, the economy is great but we are severely in debt. Besides, what can you expect from a Congress that essentially works only three days per week?
The next “power” that Congress has is to declare war. We’ll skip that one since I think everyone on the Left and Right agrees that declaring war would not be a wise decision.
The next power is “raising and providing public money and overseeing its proper expenditure.” Democrats would be delighted to raise money by taxing everyone and everything in sight; when it comes to overseeing expenditures, I don’t think anyone is much interested in taking that step; we don’t even operate with a budget.
Now the next one has potential: let’s impeach someone! Any suggestions? As long as Nancy Pelosi is in a tug-o-war with her caucus, we’ll have to take a wait-and-see position. Meanwhile, their faux impeachment investigations will continue.
The next power is approving presidential appointments, where we have made some progress. Senator McConnell has done a great job of filling judicial positions. I’m not sure that he’s doing much else, but we must give him credit for that accomplishment.
Regarding the approval of treaties, I don’t think anyone in either the House or the Senate or the President himself knows what a treaty is anymore. I guess the latest one waiting to be considered is the USMCA; on both sides of the aisle, some people love it, some people hate it. I don’t know if it matters since they probably won’t put it up for a vote any time soon.
And the last power of Congress is “oversight and investigations.” Now we’re talking! At least a half dozen Congressional committees are investigating Trump. They insist that Trump is guilty of multiple crimes and misdemeanors. And they won’t give up until they find them.
Meanwhile, the only oversight we can provide over Congress is at the ballot box. I’m not happy with any of them, Democrats or Republicans, Left or Right, Senators or Representatives. The Democrats seem to be overcome by hatred, the Republicans by fecklessness.
I think it’s time to clean house.
In 2020.
Published in Politics
I’ve heard the proposal for 18-year Supreme Court terms (one new justice every two years).
But there’s a problem with it – it creates a presumption in favor of confirmation of the nominee.
What happens if a nominee is rejected? The whole nomination/vetting/confirmation process has to start over, which takes time. Reject more than one or two nominees, suddenly you start running into the next expiring term. Then what happens? Fixed terms creates too many opportunities for game playing.
Supreme Court Nominations aren’t like elections, where the winner takes office and leaves office at fixed points in time, and converting to such a system would cause fundamental changes in the character of the court.
I say it’s spinach, and the hell with it.
As happens every time I read the Constitution, I’m amazed by how prescient, smart, and wise the men who created it were. Reading through it, I don’t see that Congress’ oversight/investigation function — which seems to be the Democrats’ main focus with a Republican (particularly Trump) in the White House — is as clearly stated as its enumerated powers; more implied and refined through subsequent statutes pursuant to the “necessary and proper” clause in Article I, Section 8.
What I do see clearly is that power to make law is vested in Congress. Executing those laws resides with Executive Branch. Democrats in Congress are outside of their lane instructing agency heads, twice now in opposition to a direct lawful order from POTUS, to run information given to White House and/or AG through Congress.
Found this breakdown of Congress’ oversight function. It’s pretty clear the current House is far from the intended purpose of oversight investigations. They have impeded (not ensured compliance) the executive branch from carrying out its Constitutional duties by the sheer number alone, and in some cases actually infringed on civil liberties.
Congress has the enumerated authority to pass appropriations laws in Article I, Section 9. Federal government cannot spend without those appropriations and must give accounting of how funds are spent:
“7: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”
To me, this is one of the areas where Congress has failed with its frequent continuing resolutions.
I was reminded (surprisingly on Twitter of all places) that before income tax US revenue was via tariffs which placed the direct “taxation” outside the US and not on US citizens. I understand the indirect taxation on Americans in form of higher costs argument against tariffs, but it did get me thinking about what if income tax were removed and US went back to tariffs….
Just realized this is my 3rd comment…I’ll blame it on @susanquinn for writing an interesting post :-)
My point is that nowhere in the Constitution is there power given to print money, only to coin it. This is just one small area where the Federal government is exceeding its authority and indicative of the many, many others. If the law is not followed in the small things, do not expect it to be followed in the large things.
Just keep making insightful comments, @mim526, and you can comment all you want!
My own opinion: the headline “Congress Takes No Action” may be replaced with “The Republic Is Safe.”
The House committees are supposed to be very busy this week with their hearings. Causing trouble. Does that count? ;-(
Well, it’s action, of a sort, so no.
The core of the conservative philosophy is that no matter how technologically advanced man becomes, the core processes of the human heart and mind remain the same. They must be accounted for in the design of any system. Thus if you know mankind, be it 1000 BCE, 1000 CE, 1789 CE, or today, you know that with which you must contend.
You’re probably right that it needs to be done. Unfortunately, we are plagued by huge numbers of ignoramuses who will vote otherwise.
So how is cleaning house accomplished? If one has a Republican Congressperson, they will probably run for re-election. They will probably not have a primary opponent. Does one vote for the Democrat in the nationwide election, just to clean house? I don’t think so.
Of course not. But maybe we should re-think having the incumbent run again. Maybe we should have someone who is, at least for the moment, uncorrupted either run against him or her, or in place of him or her. I’d say term limits, but no one agrees that’s a good idea, especially the incumbents.
What a great addition to the discussion.
The US Constitution, according to my reading of it anyway, allows for limited rule by agency.
Once a nation like ours has an agency, that agency rules. If you don’t believe me, ask someone whose life has been destroyed over minor matters by the IRS.
Returning us to a nation where there are far fewer agencies would be a great re-direction. For instance, the EPA has been gutted in terms of environmental protections. Meanwhile it serves a vast purpose of offering its protection and guarantees of safety to those companies that take advantage of the fact that most Americans think it governs wisely.
If we limited the role of agencies on the Fed level, the rule of lobbyists would be greatly diminished. (At least on that level.)
Congressional oversight is now all about corporate control over our bodies. This is a far cry from protecting individuals and their inherent, innate rights. For instance, those here who embrace the notion of vaccine mandates will not be welcome in coming crying to me ten years from now when the “one pregnancy per couple or individual” mandate falls in place.
Maybe we need to have a third party rise up as our two-party system seems to have produced a stalemate at this point. The Tea Party almost accomplished becoming a major political player, but a determined establishment within the GOP leadership did everything it could to thwart the movement. It’s quite a conundrum, particularly in light of a national press preferring to treat politics as sport rather than reporting on serious issues before Congress.
You have a good point, GWW. So many poo-pooh a third party, but I have to wonder if that opinion comes out of the swamp and self-preservation. Since both parties are essentially progressive, and the Dems are the only ones to pick fights, it’s worth considering!
Yes GOP leadership did so much to stall the Tea Party in its tracks. Including slanting the way votes were counted during the 2012 Primary in a way that handed Ron Paul’s victory to Mitt Rmoney.
However due to this travesty, Trump’s lawyers took serious notes and knew exactly what game to play as a reply if the same thing were to happen to Trump.
Your last statement is exceptionally brilliant: It’s quite a conundrum, particularly in light of a national press preferring to treat politics as sport rather than reporting on serious issues before Congress.
Luckily the fact remains that right now social media is putting the squeeze on traditional media.
Oh, I think we also pick fights, but the other side is better at it and more entertaining for the networks. I mentally visualize a ring with two boxers: Trump is slightly outweighed and bloodied by the other guy but keeps coming back every time we think he’s down for the count. The other side has also taken some punches, but he dances around the ring and fights below the belt making up new rules as the fight proceeds. Instead of disqualifying this fighter, the referee looks the other way. Much of the crowd loudly chants, “More blood, more blood.” And yet — many in the crowd sit there quietly simmering in horrified indignation knowing this is not right and are on the verge of converging on the ring to end it. They are just waiting for one of them to say, “Let’s roll.”
I feel like Trump is fighting alone, though. Who’s backing him up? He’s taking on the whole Democrat party and the Press himself. I see some of the Freedom Caucus talking big, but who’s really in the fight?
Pregnancy isn’t contagious.
He’s not alone. He has you and me. And many others. What we need is a national leader who commands respect on both sides to step forward. Paul Ryan could have made a big difference as well as Mitch McConnell. We’ll keep looking.
It’s no secret. They have no shame.
I agree on term limits. It’s really the only way to insure fresh blood and get rid of stale blood suckers. But without those limits, the only people that can stand a chance of running against the establishment politicians are billionaires who have done very popular TV shows for years and have an even more highly established name recognition than the incumbents. Where ya gonna find someone like that?
Unfortunately, in the odd chance of winning, your not-yet-corrupted-one is matched with the staff (or suitable substitute) of the exiting corrupt-one and becomes very reliable to the “right” cause about 15 minutes after arriving in D.C.
(FWIW – The short version of my plan: (1) increase the number of Representatives by 10x, (2) have the House meet virtually (must call in from inside their district) – let’s see the lobbyists heard (i.e. buy off) those cats, and (c) Repeal the 17th amendment.)
We will never have government intended by the constitution until we make it illegal for US Senators and US Congressmen to accept contributions outside the states they represent.
What’s the difference? I believe that money was predominately found in coins at that time, not paper or printed form.
If Congress did only what was literally in the Constitution, generally, I’d be happier. But I don’t see the point of the above.
There are mechanisms for changing the Constitution. For the first eighty years, or so, the Constitution was followed well. Lincoln was an anomaly. Then for about another forty years the Constitution was followed again before the Progressives threw it out the window. Even they amended the Constitution to make the Federal Government much more powerful before deciding they didn’t have to anymore since they had weakened the states and people enough that they didn’t matter.
So, let’s say that they want to print fiat currency instead of coining money because the world has changed in more than a century since the Constitution was written. What should they do? Amend the Constitution, rather than ignoring it. If they ignore it in one place, how many others will they ignore? How many other ways have they ignored it or “reinterpreted” it since 1912? It’s a serious problem.
I don’t think that’s a road you want to go down. By that logic if we don’t amend the Constitution again the First Amendment doesn’t apply to electronic communications.
Bingo ! How many remember when California had only one legislative session every other year ? If I remember correctly (and that is getting harder every year), Jesse Unruh was the one who got the annual legislative session adopted. Before that, alternate years were only for budget, no legislation.
Staff sizes is another huge issue. In Caro’s biography of Johnson, he describes the small staffs of the times around the 1940s. In Richard Nixon’s Congressional office, Pat Nixon worked.
This is done on purpose, not a “failure.” It is to hide the role of individual members on spending.
A lot of what we are complaining about is an “unintended consequence” of the McCain-Feingold law. It was supposedly a do-good law to limit money in politics. Does anyone think that happened? What it did was turn legislation over to the staffs as the member spent his/her time raising money. No member of Congress writes bills now. The staffs do it. Then, unless they become members themselves, they become lobbyists or bureaucrats writing the regulations that actually do the task that the law was supposed to do.