A Solution for the Do Nothing Congress
In the wake of the
worst mass shooting in the United States our dithering, name-calling,
finger-pointing, lazy, ineffective, posturing, posing, pain-in-the-ass
politicians have failed to pass even one piece of legislation pertaining to the
issue of too many criminals with too many guns.
Everyone who is surprised raise
your hand. No hands? Right.
We shall continue, but not in the direction you might think. This is not a column about gun control.
The
number of actionable pieces of legislation handled by our elected and tax paid
Representatives and Senators has dropped from 26,222 pieces in 1973 to less than
half that number, 10,199, in 2016. The
number of laws actually passed has dropped from 772 (!) to 177(!!!). In 23 years these banana slugs in the Congress
have dropped their record of accomplishment by 86%.
We
elect people of different political views to the Congress to do one job, work
for the betterment of the United States.
We recognize that they will have opposing definitions of the problems,
the solutions, and methodologies, but these differences are a given. Their job is to fold those differences into
actionable laws that benefit all of us.
Legislators have done this for two centuries. Always with more or less success, swiftly or
slowly, with baby steps or confident strides, but it has happened.
In
roughly the life-time of my children, we have gone from the 93rd
Congress (1973-1975) acting on 26,222 pieces of legislation and passing 772 to
the present 114th Congress and its miserable 177 bills. The precipitous
decline began with the beginning of Bill Clinton’s presidency when legislative
production dropped from 610 to 473 bills and continues on its downward spiral
to the 177 bills of this Congress.
Evidently
no one wants to do the hard work of passing a bill. And it is hard work. You have to meet with people you may or may
not like, find common ground and deciding what you are willing to give up to
achieve part of your objective. Please
notice, you do not achieve victory by telling the opposition what they must
give up, but what you will. Both sides
must enter into this with the idea of producing something that all can agree
on. Why?
Because it is their freaking job!
The work of a legislator is not to assign
blame, but produce consensus.
Let’s
look at this week’s failure apropos to gun control legislation. Sen. Grassley (R-Iowa) saw his amendment to
enhance funding for the existing gun background check program fail 53-47. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) lost a
measure to expand gun background checks and close the gun show loophole where
firearm purchases are not tracked 44-56.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) tried to push a measure that would allow the
government to delay gun sales to suspected terrorists for 72 hours. Even the NRA backed this legislation, but it
still failed 53-47. And finally, Sen.
Dianne Feinstein (D-California) backed a bill to keep people on a government
terrorism watch list or other suspected terrorists from buying guns. This was endorsed by the Justice Department
and still lost 47-53.
Do
not tell me, with votes this close, that these 100 Senators couldn’t have found
some language that they could all support.
They simply chose not to because they get paid the same whether they do
any work or not. I have a
suggestion. Let’s pay these louts by
piece work. They get paid nothing for
the first 100 bills that are passed and 0.5% of their salary for each bill
after that. Then we’ll see how well they
play with others.
Get
tough and keep the faith.
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