Why does Congress suck so much?

[Pointedstick]

So I'm watching live footage of the house and senate deliberations on the fiscal cliff and I'm really not impressed with the institution of Congress itself. What I'm seeing is that every once in a while, some congressperson stands up for a few minutes and delivers a poorly-organized, rambling speech riddled with factual errors, and then nothing appears to happen for several minutes between the time when that speaker finishes and the chair asks if any other people want to speak.

There also appear to be no subject restrictions. For example, Patrick Leahy right now is rambling on about Bush and the Iraq War in the middle of his speech about the importance of tax hikes. And all the chairs behind him are empty. So he's practically talking to himself. He sounds half senile as he randomly, incoherently bounces from subject to subject. And yet this guy has such seniority that supposedly he's highly respected.

There appears to be no value created anywhere, by anyone, for anyone. It's just a bunch of angry, ill-informed old people who have inexplicably been given tremendous power despite what appears to be their utter lack of qualifications. It's like bizarro world.

[TripleB]

If you read HB's Why Government Doesn't Work, you'll see that Government has never worked, can never work, and will never work.

Wondering why the 2012 US Congress doesn't work is like wondering why every new fox you buy and leave in the hen house eats the chickens. You put down the fox and put a new fox in there with the same results. Then perhaps you decide to try putting a wolf in there instead because clearly the fox doesn't work. And the wolf does the same thing. But you can't possibly leave the chickens all alone in the hen house! So you buy a tiger and the tiger also eats the chickens.

Congress sucks so much because it's always sucked and will always suck.

[Bob]

If the opposite of "pro" is "con", then the opposite of "progress" is "congress."

[RuralEngineer]

If the opposite of "pro" is "con", then the opposite of "progress" is "congress."

Ha, that's good.

It's as I stated before, a random selection of people meeting certain standards (minimum education levels, no criminal or mental health issues, etc.) would perform at a significantly higher rate than our current system.  Congress sucks because our political system sifts the population like a giant kitty litter scooper to find the clumped lumps of crap that we then put into office.

[doodle]

I think that congress is full of extremists on both sides who pander to loud outliers in their parties. The ridiculous process of gerrymandering districts makes this all the worse and results in a total lack of compromise.

Politics is a reality in society (sorry, I disagree with the anarchists / libertarians here). The system in which this political process takes place largely determines whether it is a success or failure. Rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater (which Im afraid the surge in radical libertarianism is suggesring in response to broken system) I would argue we should work on fixing whats broken with the system.

Interesting article by David Brooks which you will all probably disagree with :-)http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/opini ... .html?_r=0

This confluence of crises has produced a surge in vehement libertarianism. People are disgusted with Washington. The Tea Party movement rallies against big government, big business and the ruling class in general. Even beyond their ranks, there is a corrosive cynicism about public action.

But there is another way to respond to these problems that is more communitarian and less libertarian. This alternative has been explored most fully by the British writer Phillip Blond.

He grew up in working-class Liverpool. “I lived in the city when it was being eviscerated,”? he told The New Statesman. “It was a beautiful city, one of the few in Britain to have a genuinely indigenous culture. And that whole way of life was destroyed.”? Industry died. Political power was centralized in London.

Blond argues that over the past generation we have witnessed two revolutions, both of which liberated the individual and decimated local associations. First, there was a revolution from the left: a cultural revolution that displaced traditional manners and mores; a legal revolution that emphasized individual rights instead of responsibilities; a welfare revolution in which social workers displaced mutual aid societies and self-organized associations.

Then there was the market revolution from the right. In the age of deregulation, giant chains like Wal-Mart decimated local shop owners. Global financial markets took over small banks, so that the local knowledge of a town banker was replaced by a manic herd of traders thousands of miles away. Unions withered.

The two revolutions talked the language of individual freedom, but they perversely ended up creating greater centralization. They created an atomized, segmented society and then the state had to come in and attempt to repair the damage.

The free-market revolution didn’t create the pluralistic decentralized economy. It created a centralized financial monoculture, which requires a gigantic government to audit its activities. The effort to liberate individuals from repressive social constraints didn’t produce a flowering of freedom; it weakened families, increased out-of-wedlock births and turned neighbors into strangers. In Britain, you get a country with rising crime, and, as a result, four million security cameras.

[notsheigetz]

I've often joked that it would be better to choose members of congress by lottery. Maybe it's time to take the idea seriously, especially when you consider how much money was spent for absolutely no purpose in the last election. Here's someone who agrees....

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/1 ... story.html

[Pointedstick]

It might surprise you, doodle, but I agree with you than politics is probably an inevitability. I also agree that doing away with it entirely is probably impossible, so all we have to hope for is unfortunately that it works better. I too would welcome ways to make politics work better.

But first we have to define what "better" actually means. In my mind it doesn't mean "more efficient at extracting wealth from the population, crushing innovation, and hindering progress." So ideally, "fixing" politics would involve less of that, not more.

The question then becomes, how do you make politics less extractive, less inhibitory to innovation and progress? We first need to identify the root of the problem to answer this question. So, why does politics exhibit those traits? In my opinion, it's the disconnection between politicians and the effects of their policies. Politicians have every incentive to enrich themselves and their special interests (who enrich them) rather than the whole of society. Part of fixing this requires having some agreement on what enriches all of society, but it also requires taking a long view of society. In other words, it involves the desire to maximize society's long-term capital value rather than extract or redistribute as much of the short-term income stream it produces.

It's much like the difference between someone who desires to build up investments and live on the interest, compared to the person who would deplete the capital value to live larger in the present, at the extent of the future.

I think a lottery system for politicians would be a vast improvement over what we have now, but ultimately, in my opinion, if we want to do better than random chance (which would still be an improvement!), we should attempt to build institutions that somehow attract, select for, and encourage those whose motives are to maximize the country's capital stock rather than consume or redistribute its current income stream.

[Kshartle]

Congress sucks because the Americans suck. Most American voters are selfish and lazy and they elect liars who tell them they are hard-working and virtuous. They elect liars who tell them they are going to steal from the other guy and give the loot to them. They elect people who promise they will give them goodies that they'll never have to pay for. Anyone who runs an honest campaign loses.

[TripleB]

I've been listening to all of the HB political radio shows recently. I'm only a fraction through but one recently I heard him talk about Congress.

He said that if you want to do anything in this country, the government regulates it. You can't be a doctor, lawyer, or whatever without a license from the government. Even professions like massage therapist and hairdresser require a government license. The theory being to prove minimum competence.

HB says, you know what job doesn't require you pass a minimum competency test? Being a Congressman. You don't have to prove you ever read the constitution and most probably haven't. You don't have to prove you know anything. And most don't.

[Kshartle]

Hah, they hate the free market but they love operating in one when it comes to vote bribery.

[TripleB]

Hah, they hate the free market but they love operating in one when it comes to vote bribery.

The free market keeps failing, how could anyone not hate it? 

[Storm]

I really like Jon Huntsman - he's one of the only Republicans I would vote for as President.  Read his quotes today:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/3 ... lp00000009

[edsanville]

So I'm watching live footage of the house and senate deliberations on the fiscal cliff and I'm really not impressed with the institution of Congress itself. What I'm seeing is that every once in a while, some congressperson stands up for a few minutes and delivers a poorly-organized, rambling speech riddled with factual errors, and then nothing appears to happen for several minutes between the time when that speaker finishes and the chair asks if any other people want to speak.

There also appear to be no subject restrictions. For example, Patrick Leahy right now is rambling on about Bush and the Iraq War in the middle of his speech about the importance of tax hikes. And all the chairs behind him are empty. So he's practically talking to himself. He sounds half senile as he randomly, incoherently bounces from subject to subject. And yet this guy has such seniority that supposedly he's highly respected.

There appears to be no value created anywhere, by anyone, for anyone. It's just a bunch of angry, ill-informed old people who have inexplicably been given tremendous power despite what appears to be their utter lack of qualifications. It's like bizarro world.

I wonder what the supposed purpose of these speeches is.  I seriously doubt they'd convince anyone to change their mind about anything, even if the speeches were eloquent.  Maybe they're all just going through the motions, because they're expected to get together and "debate" about things.  Maybe they all make their decisions outside the Capitol building...  perhaps with a group of lobbyists involved.

Also, could it be true that people who work for political parties and political machines are highly specialized?  Perhaps it's not the congressman's job to be smart and think about things.  They're specialization is to look good and be "charismatic,"  (by whatever definition gets them elected).  Behind the scenes, the thinkers concoct strategy.

[Storm]

Also, could it be true that people who work for political parties and political machines are highly specialized?  Perhaps it's not the congressman's job to be smart and think about things.  They're specialization is to look good and be "charismatic,"  (by whatever definition gets them elected).  Behind the scenes, the thinkers concoct strategy.

I think you're right.  The politicians are just figure heads.  They never actually write and rarely even read the bills.  Congressional staffers write all the legislation.  They are the policy wonks that actually do the work on the hill.  Think of politicians like the CEOs of a tech company.  They hire programmers to write all the code that makes up the laws.  I rarely ever see CEOs that are good at writing code.  We're lucky if the CEO knows how to check his email without calling tech support...

[smurff]

The purpose of the speech is to officially place it into the written historical record, where presumably a future researcher will read it and know what Pat Leahy had to say about the issue.  That's why they're not embarrassed about an empty chamber the way you or I would be when making a speech under those circumstances.  It's one of those congressional rules, if you want something put into the Congressional Record you have to read it from the floor.

Congress is such an archaic institution that much of what we see are silly-looking and make-work speeches, usually made for reasons that have nothing to do with the substance of the speech.  Like spending so much time talking (during quiet times when the Senate is in session but most of the members are in committee meetings) to an empty chamber that it looks like the other side is so out to lunch that they have nothing to say.

What we don't see is where the real work takes place--in the offices of lobbyists, the actual writers of most of the legislation.