I never thought I’d say this, but the US Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid makes me yearn for the days of Dennis Hastert. And I gather the vast majority of my fellow citizens feel the same way since Congress’ approval rating is at an all-time low of 14%! [You could get 14% approval for Attila.-ed. He gets 30%.]
This should give a little pause to those Democratic Party triumphalists who think their crowd is going to waltz into the White House in ‘08. But that’s the least of it. The more important question is why our government is run by such dimwitted mediocrities on both sides of the aisle. I have written before that Silvestre Reyes is the poster child of our Congress – a man who, as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee [sic], couldn’t tell the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite. And he’s still in office! Think about that, those of you who run businesses large and small. As CEO of Pajamas Media, if one of our editors were that uniformed at this point in history I would have no choice but to show him or her the door (not that any of our editors are even remotely that ignorant).
The comparison between government and business has been made many times before and I used to give government the benefit of the doubt. And I am still convinced that there are many things government does better than the private sector, things that it must do. But if government is run by the likes of Pelosi, Reid, Reyes and Hastert, then Heaven help us.
The first thing we need to deal with this is term limits. Government has become a sinecure for the inept. We already have a two-term limit on the Presidency. Similar limits on the House and Senate would be just fine. Of course, we all know such limits stand little chance of passing. The incumbents, on both sides of the aisle, want to stay in office for life. This is most probably an example of how our elected officials are in complete opposition to the will of the people. Given the results of the Gallup Poll linked above, what do you think the percentage of the populace is that would support term limits? My guess is something close to 86% (with the usual margin of error).
PJM Home
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
18 Comments
1. Neo:14% obviously isn’t low enough to stop the Great Undocumented Potential Voter Grab of 2007.
I mean, count ‘em, 5 to 12 million voters happy to be (most likely) Democrats, as the suck up the resources of the social welfare system that they only have minimal access to today.
And with minimal effort to stem the tide, millions more are on the way already.
Jun 20, 2007 - 11:45 pm 2. Foobarista:I’m not sure how to fix Congress, but I’m not sure term limits will help much. In California, it basically gave the legislature to the bureaucracy, since the legislators are too green to govern effectively, and you get careerist short-termers running for office who spend their time lining up support so they can move to the next level – or at least get a good job lobbying or in the bureaucracy.
About the only good thing term limits did was get rid of Willy Brown, the original Slick Willy.
Jun 21, 2007 - 1:44 am 3. Terrye:In some ways I think term limits might help, but then again the other problem is money. It takes too much to run these days and this whole internet thing is helpful to some extent, but there are still tens of millions of Americans who are oblivious to political blogs. Of course pandering to talk radio might help, but they are capitalists too….looking for market shares and trying to make money so their next big thing will have to have some star quality or they will not mess with him. I wonder what chance Abe Lincoln would have in such an environment?
And I think Foobarista makes a good point, the permanent government gains power and influence when the legislators lose it.
Perhaps people are just tired of the nonsense.
I am not so sure that low approval ratings for Congress are good news for Republicans either. This poll from RCP shows any Democrat {including pretty boy Edwards} beating any Republican.
I have to wonder however, if now that they have seen the fruits of their labors, many of the conservative pundits like Peggy Noonan who were telling people stay home in 06 to send a message….are happy with what they got. You know what they say, with friends like Noonan and some of the more hysterical folks at NRO who needs enemies.
Jun 21, 2007 - 3:53 am 4. Terrye:Neo:
I take exception with that. I work for a home health care agency and our clients include rich and poor of every race and ethnic group, including upper middle class white people…. and the truth is I have never seen anyone no matter what their income turn down assistance from government programs like medicare or social security or anything else. I do not care if they are Democrat or Republican.
I had a client who recently left the hospital, he was in there for a week for a bad infection. His hospital stay…. just the stay itself…. costs $20,000. That does not include treatments or drugs or anything else.Costs like that overwhelm people.
Jun 21, 2007 - 4:01 am 5. bill-tb:The quest for new welfare voters out wieghs all other considerations for the Democrat party. I have always said, Democrats don’t care a wit about what you think, what America needs, nor the health and welfare of the country at large … It’s all about their power, to tell you how to live and what you can do, simple as that.
Jun 21, 2007 - 5:12 am 6. Buddy Larsen:foobarista, you might as well keep rattlesnakes in the house to ward off mice.
The permanent bureaucrats rule the term-limited pols because the permanent bureaucrats have too much power. Term limits and new work rules–and disband public-employee unions (such unions are freaks of nature anyway–unions organize to protect workers from employer abuse–who the hell employs public employees? Voters, that’s who).
Reform. Wholesale reform, now.
Jun 21, 2007 - 6:33 am 7. Fausta:You hit the nail on the head, Roger.
As a private business PJM lives and dies in the marketplace of ideas and commerce.
Congress and the Senate don’t.
And that makes all the difference
Jun 21, 2007 - 6:50 am 8. kg2v:I have an interesting way to fix Congress – MORE congress critters!!
Let’s look at the Consitution – in particular, article I – it fixes the MAX number of Representitives at 1:30000, and for many years, that WAS the number, until the House got too big for the chamber in the Capitol, which is when we fixed the number at 435 Reps. The design of a building seems to be a really silly reason to change the government.
Right now, each House member represents roughly 690,000 people. It’s a BIG job, for which they get paid a LOT, it’s a LOT of POWER, and they have a LOT of influence
Now, picture we go back to 1:30K – or we have 10 THOUSAND congress critters. What kind of influence will ONE of them have? He only has 10K constiuents – that fixes how much money he is willing to spend, and how much power he will have, and guess what? You might even get to see and KNOW the candidates.
Jun 21, 2007 - 6:52 am 9. MarkD:Terrye is right. The problem is money. Too much of our money flows through Washington.
Restrict the national government to its enumerated powers, and the problem cures itself. If one state messes up, you can always vote with your feet (hear me Gov Spitzer?)
It won’t happen. I’m old enough to remember living in a fairly free country. Pretty much the only compulsory government programs were Social Security and the draft. My kids never lived in such freedom, and never will.
Jun 21, 2007 - 7:37 am 10. Steven Mitchell:Roger,
“I never thought I’d say this, but the US Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid makes me yearn for the days of Dennis Hastert”
And I’d like to say, “I hate to say I told you so,” except that I don’t really mind at all.
Seriously, it can always get worse. As some of you may recall, I have been saying for some time that the biggest problem with an awful opposition (aka the Dems) is that it drags the GOP down towards their level. Pols that fight the spiral, like Leiberman, are doing the country a great service, because they help resist this trend in both parties.
Term limits would help a lot, but it isn’t primarily the amount of money, but what gets done with that money. That money buys campaign ads on television, and the high price makes the politicians want to keep the press at least semi-reserved.
Don’t get me wrong. “The gift that keeps on giving,” Pelosi, would have an awful approval rating in 1975, too. She is too awful for the press to salvage. However, congress wouldn’t have as low an approval as it has now, if it weren’t for new media getting the message out to more people.
Fred Thompson’s recent conversion on effective campaign finance reform are the way to go. George Will has been saying it forever: Let anyone spend whatever they want on behalf of whom they want–as long as they file somewhere completely open to the public before the donation is made.
Term limits, that kind of real, constitutional campaign finance reform, and more open media would pretty much solve the problem–as much as it can be solved, given human nature. It’s not just the established pols that resist this. The MSM doesn’t want it, the Washington bureaucrats don’t want it. No one in the current system–too attached to their power–wants it.
Jun 21, 2007 - 8:33 am 11. Terrye:I don’t think Thompson has had any conversion at all. He is just sucking up.
And I have to admit. I can not stand George Will. The whole thing that got the whole campaign finance reform thing going in the first place was people giving huge sums of money to politicians. Now I admit that it did not work, but that does not change the fact that people will not feel a lot better about millionaires giving tons of money to candidates just because they tell us they are giving tons of money to politicians.
Free air time for candidates would have a greater impact, but that will never happen.
As for the Democrats not caring, I have to say that I am an Independent. I have seen politicians of both parties I could support and politicians of both parties I would not support. But I think it is unfair to make any such large brush statements about an entire political party not caring about America, especially one that most Americans identify with. At least right now.
Jun 21, 2007 - 11:33 am 12. Steven Mitchell:Terrye, George Will ain’t exactly my favorite person right now, either, and I haven’t paid much attention to him for a decade. But on this question, he has a little thing like an actual argument supported by the Constitution. The man was a poli-sci professor with a strong appreciation for the Constitution, before he became a pundit and then a TV guy.
As for what people won’t tolerate, what they didn’t like was the “decisions made in smoke-filled rooms” by people that didn’t know about. It was never the money, but knowing the guys behind the money that was the problem.
Free air time will do the opposite. It will *give* power to the people who control the TV. And nothing is really “free”. If you are going to do that, might as well go back to “Fairness Doctrine” and pretend that the people who run the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have no agenda.
Jun 21, 2007 - 11:43 am 13. Sandy P:For starters, send them all back to their home states, w/only 1-2 small trips to DC during the year.
They can work out of each state’s capitol building.
Cuts down on the supposed global warming they’re so concerned about, keeps them closer to their constituents which they don’t want.
We have the tech and movie theaters for mass meetings.
Cuts their travel budget, cuts their housing/expense budget, keeps them out of trouble, they’re like kids in a candy store.
Jun 21, 2007 - 2:05 pm 14. ricpic:Unelected positions in the government, which are the vast majority of positions, are neither filled nor held on the basis of merit. The days of hiring blind based on how the applicant scored on a civil service entry exam are long over. After all, that would result in a disproportionately white male workforce and we can’t have that! No. For the foreseeable future the government workforce will be representative…and inept.
Jun 21, 2007 - 3:49 pm 15. Connecticut Yankee:Roger sez: “As CEO of Pajamas Media, if one of our editors were that uniformed at this point in history I would have no choice but to show him or her the door” . . .
Lovely Freudian slip– points up the lock-step mentality of the dimwits admirably (and I think any milbloggers reading the post will laugh too).
Jun 21, 2007 - 4:42 pm 16. Ken Hahn:So long as politicians can buy votes with tax money the problem cannot be solved. All social programs, no matter how admirable, turn into bureaucratic nightmares within a few years. The care and feeding of donors and constituents becomes the driving force. Earmarks, lobbyists and special interest groups dominate the budget process.
Term limits help. Unfortunately, they help something like a bandaid on a gunshot wound. Experienced legislators are only slightly more likely to form cozy relations with a self interested bureaucracy. The new people are better only if they are willing to confront established interests. Few are.
Jun 21, 2007 - 11:13 pm 17. Terrye:Steven:
I feel the same way about poli sci majors that I do lawyers. I take that back, at least lawyers have to pass the bar.
And the Constitution is strangely silent on the subject of campaign finance.
However, the founding fathers did not spend a lot of time talking about elections would be carried out or even exactly who would and would not vote.
Hence the debate over the years. For instance, in the early days of the Republic only property owning white men could vote. The Indians and the slaves did not have a vote. It was thought that an indentured servant or a woman would be too dependent on the dominant male in their lives to render an independent vote.
Obviously in regards to our constitution not everything is written in stone.
Jun 22, 2007 - 3:39 am 18. Steven Mitchell:Terrye, depends on whether or not the Poli-sci professor bothers to study the Federalist Papers and other writings of the founder. Say what you want about Will, he did the work, and has maintained a strong admiration for Madison ever since. I think it’s the only thing that keeps him remotely on an even keel in his present environment.
The founders were pretty darn clear that the *purpose* of the first admendment was to protect *political* speech. When you say who can spend what to advertise their views, you curb political speech. So we come this silly stage where the popular view is that the first admendment protects “art”, but not campaign contributions. Exactly backwards. Last I checked, the first admendment was a rather bedrock piece of our Constitution–and the founders were clear on why it was there.
P.S. Madison assumed that people would be small and petty. It’s central to his famous dicussion of factions. His cure, well explained to his fellow founders, and presumably supported since they signed on, was *more* speech, not curbed speech.
Jun 22, 2007 - 11:55 am