Congress is Vital

Game Plan

NYC harbor from Brooklyn Heights

This Substack post publishes the Game Plan for the months ahead, information that you subscribers deserve.

Yes, Congress is Vital, vital meaning per Merriam-Webster “of the utmost importance”, essential, or fundamental. I believe this to be true. The founding fathers put Congress first in the constitution on page 1, Article I. They gave it an incredible list of powers as I listed in an earlier post. Along with powers came a responsibility to use them well.

The word “Governance” refers to the processes and structures by which decisions are made and enforced within an organization or society, per Wikipedia. Congress was given the position to play a huge role in the governance of the United States.

To be clear, “Congress is Vital” does not mean that it is doing a good job of solving the major problems of our country.

You are familiar with the term “three coequal branches of government”, BUT the framers gave the Legislative Branch (Congress) many Powers that made it important on purpose. Why? Because citizens get to vote on all representatives and one-third of senators, or 87% of all members of Congress, every two years. But are these voters really offered a fair choice of candidates? Is it possible now for the voters to select someone new and fresh, someone with different approaches and attitudes? I submit that most of the time, the answer is NO.

See the three charts below for congressional job approval and re-election rates at the House and Senate. With voter approval rates around 20%, how can we explain re-election rates continually in the 90% range? As Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

Re-election rate charts above are from Open Secrets, with recent averages around 94% for the House and 90% for the Senate.

What are examples of major problems going unsolved? The list below is one I made a few years ago; that it is still valid is hard evidence of the lack of problem solving since then.

• Immigration policy

• Deficit spending and federal debt

• Solvency of Social Security

• Solvency of Medicare

• Global Warming

• Congressional influence on foreign policy

• Delegation of inordinate power to agencies – to unelected bureaucrats

• Congress’s internal issues causing dysfunction

So, the game plan is to present one of the topics above, Deficit Spending and Federal Debt, as the focus of the series of my upcoming Substack posts. Why that topic? First, it is a topic of current debate, not because Congress is finally serious about solving Debt, but because of party pressures to increase deficits in the coming years rather than correct the causes of our Unsustainable Federal Fiscal Policies. Second, it is a prime example of the harm being done to America by the two parties focusing on buying votes rather than problem solving.

Then, after these Federal Fiscal Policies posts, we will switch to a longer series on electoral processes for electing members to Congress.