Dear Congressman: The Whole World is Watching, and They Know You're Going to Fail

I sat down this morning to write an article about the next budgetary challenge facing the Congress of the United States.  Once again, they have the chance to prove how fiscally irresponsible, and politically hopeless, they are.  The Supercommittee's first deadline, November 23, is only three weeks away, but five days before that, the Congress has to pass the 2012 budget.  You and I both know how that's going to turn out, right?

Anyway, I was going to give you an analysis of the situation, when I ran across an article online.  The article appeared on yahoo.com, and it was written by Jay Newton-Small, of Time.com.  Jay says exactly what I was going to say - even with my voice, right down to the "You gotta love" near the end.  It's as if I discovered a kindred spirit.  If I get the author's approval, I'll reprint the whole article here.  For now, here's the link to the article.

As Congress Squabbles, Another Shutdown Looms

Read and enjoy.

FEMA does Congress' job for them, this time

That emergency budget bill finally passed.  Here's how it all came out.  The emergency budget bill got stuck in the Senate, where it was trapped by more politicking and grandstanding.  Read some of the outrageous stuff the Senators were saying, at Yahoo! News.

If that article, and others on CNN and other websites, are accurate, then it looks like nobody standing at the podium in the Senate chamber cared one way or the other about the looming government shutdown, or the disaster victims in the northeastern U.S.  They only cared about winning.  In their eyes, this budget bill had nothing to do with the good of the country or the fate of the disaster victims.  It had everything to do with political power - winning and losing.

Nobody was going to compromise on this.  The elected officials only wanted to engage in posturing, stonewalling, and name-calling.  It was Business As Usual.

And what hung in the balance, other than the poor lady in Vermont whose house was nothing but a naked frame with the wind blowing through, was funding to keep the Federal Emergency Management Agency running.  If this bill didn't pass, the federal government would shut down, including FEMA - and that lady in Vermont was depending on FEMA to help her.

(We can save for another time the debate on the merits of FEMA, or whether hurricane and earthquake victims should depend on federal agencies to help them recover.  That's peripheral to the crisis happening in Washington DC right now.)

Once more, to make it clear:  the fiscal year ends on September 30.  The problem was that FEMA would run out of funds before the end of the fiscal year, and this budget bill was an emergency bill to keep FEMA, and other agencies, running until then.  You may think it's only 3 days, but a lot of money passes through Washington's hands in 3 days.  If the U.S. government shuts down for one day, that's a big enough problem.

In the end, a compromise was reached.  It wasn't the Democrats.  It wasn't the Republicans.  It wasn't the Senate.  It wasn't the House of Representatives.

It was FEMA.

FEMA, not wanting to shut down (obviously), had a look at their accounts and figured out a way they could legally shuffle things so that they could make it through Friday.  Once they figured it out, they told the Senate leaders, who must have looked a bit confused and said, "Oh, okay then."  Shortly afterwards, the Senate voted 79-12 to approve it.  Now, according to Yahoo, it goes back to the House for a final rubber stamp.  Let's hope they can manage that.

Just so you know where I stand on this:  Our elected legislators in Washington DC have proven for the third time this year that when the chips are down, they can't legislate their way out of a wet paper bag.  If they can't complete a task this (relatively) simple, we cannot depend on them to achieve anything really, seriously important.  This Congress is totally dysfunctional, and anything they try to do is doomed to failure.

Everything You Need to Know About the Debt Supercommittee

As part of the last-minute compromise on August 2 that resolved the debt-limit crisis, Congress set up a 12-person Super Committee.  Officially called the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction,this committee was charged with coming up with a permanent fix for the budget and deficit problems facing the country and threatening the still-shaky economic recovery.

The idea that this Super Committee might come up with a "permanent" solution reminds me of some "permanent" solutions to other wide-ranging problems from the very early 20th century:

• World War I, the "war to end all wars."
• The League of Nations.  (And its successor, the United Nations.)

In recent years we've also seen "permanent" solutions like No Child Left Behind, which is at best partially successful and at worst an unmitigated disaster in every way.

I can think of so many ways that the Super Committee idea will fail.  All of them have to do with the inability of our elected officials to set aside their own agendas, ignore the Special Interests, be willing to compromise, work together for the common good, and act with foresight, courage and maturity.  And if it does fail, the nation will be plunged into another economic crisis, and members of the Super Committee and Congress at large will stand around, pointing their fingers and blaming everyone but themselves for the failure.

In this article, I will give you the names of the twelve members of the Super Committee, and the timetable for the Super Committee and Congress.  This is public information.  I copied it from the National Journal and the Christian Science Monitor.

Members of the Super Committee

1. Sen. Max Baucus (D) of Montana - chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which handles Medicare and tax policy.
2. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D) of California -vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus and senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee.  He voted against the August 2 debt-limit compromise.
3. Rep. Dave Camp (R) of Michigan - member of the House Ways and Means Committee.  He has a reputation as a moderate who is skilled at "working both sides of the aisle."
4. Rep. James Clyburn (D) of South Carolina -member of the House Appropriations Committee and No. 3 in the House Democratic Caucus.
5. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R) of Texas - appointed as co-chair of the Super Committee.  A "true-blue conservative" who is not known for any ability to compromise, or to work effectively with non-conservatives.  To his credit, he broke with the Republicans and didn't buy into the "too big to fail" argument during the bail-out talks of the recent Great Recession.
6. Sen. John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts - former presidential candidate, former chair of the Small Business Committee, current chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Rumor has it that he lobbied hard to get appointed to the Super Committee.
7. Sen. Jon Kyl (R) of Arizona - Senate Republican whip and member of the Senate Finance Committee.  He retires at the end of this term, so while he may be doing this to pad his résumé, he's not doing it to consolidate his power in the Senate.  He may actually help the Super Committee do something useful.
8. Sen. Patty Murray (D) of Washington - appointed as co-chair of the Super Committee.  Chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.  She probably got on the Super Committeeat least in part because she is trusted by Senate majority leader Harry Reid.
9. Sen. Rob Portman (R) of Ohio - former Representative (for 12 years) and former member of the House Ways and Means Committee, this is his first term as Senator.
10. Sen. Patrick Toomey (R) of Pennsylvania - also a former Representative (for 6 years) and freshman Senator.  Sen. Toomey has a refreshingly independent voting record:  he has voted with Democrats at times, and against his own party and the Tea Party at times, and he worked with a Democratic Senator to ban earmarks in spending bills.
11. Rep. Fred Upton (R) of Michigan - chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, with a reputation as a "moderate conservative."  He is suspected of planning to use his position on the Super Committee to further his agenda of weakening environmental protections and taking the teeth out of the Environmental Protection Agency.
12. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D) of Maryland - member of the House Budget Committee.

 Timetable for the Super Committee

In a nutshell, the Super Committee has to come up with a plan for cutting the national debt by $1.5 trillion over x years.  They have to present the formal, approved-by-all-twelve-members, plan to Congress by November 23.  The House and Senate both have to vote to approve the plan by December 23.  (I guess President Obama has to sign it into law by then, too.)  If this doesn't happen, then the automatic spending cuts written into the August 2 compromise swing into action, much to the consternation of American citizens, other national governments, and banks worldwide.

Here are the details.  You know who lives in the details!


Sept. 8: The committee holds its first organizational meeting; on the agenda will be setting the rules.

Sept. 13: First public hearing, which will include testimony on "The History and Drivers of Our Nation's Debt and Its Threats" from Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf.

Sept. 22: Deadline for Congress to consider a resolution of disapproval for first $900 billion tranche of debt limit increase.

Oct. 1-Dec. 31: Timeframe in which both houses of Congress must vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment.

Oct. 14: House and Senate committees must submit recommendations to the committee by this date.

Nov. 23: Deadline for the committee to vote on a plan with $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction.

Dec. 2: Deadline for the committee to submit report and legislative language to the president and Congress.

Dec. 23: Deadline for both houses to vote on the committee bill.

Jan. 15, 2012: Date that the “trigger” leading to $1.2 trillion of future spending cuts goes into effect, if the committee’s legislation has not been enacted.

February 2012: Approximate time when the first $900 billion of debt ceiling increase runs out.

February/March 2012: During this period, 15 days after the president uses his authority in the bill to increase the debt ceiling a second time, is the deadline for Congress to consider a resolution of disapproval for the second tranche ($1.2-$1.5 trillion) of debt limit increase.

Fall/Winter 2012: The additional $2.1-$2.4 trillion of borrowing authority from this law runs out.

Jan. 2, 2013: OMB orders sequestrations for defense and non-defense categories of spending necessary to meet spending cuts required by the “trigger."



Good luck to all of us

Like the great-aunt who throws rice on the bride and groom and wishes them well, then turns around and mutters, "They'll be divorced in less than a year," I wish the Super Committee all the success in the world, but I expect them to fail miserably.  I'd love to be proven wrong on this.

A note on Kerry "lobbying hard" to get on the Super Committee:  I wouldn't be surprised if all twelve of them (and others who didn't get nominated) aspired, and pushed hard, to get onto this committee. However, I don't believe that anybody who did so, did so for primarily altruistic or patriotic reasons.  I'd love to be proven wrong on this, too.

Dear Congressman: Grow up, already

To all the members of the Congress of the United States:

You haven't learned a single thing.

The compromise upon which you settled, in order to bring an end to the debt-limit crisis and avert a larger crisis, was admirable.  We must give you credit for that.  But the acrimony, the stubbornness, and the brinksmanship which preceded the compromise were deplorable and childish.

Or, in more common language, your behavior sucks.  Your attitude sucks.  You're acting like a bunch of little babies.  If I were a private businessman, I would never hire someone like you to work for me.  If I did, you would alienate all of my customers.  My suppliers would refuse to do business with me, and my best employees would resign, all because of you.  You would ruin my business.

Immediately after the compromise became law, you ran out of town en masse for your summer break - leaving undone all sorts of important tasks that had been repeatedly deferred because of your STUPID arguing over the debt limit.  The most visible of these undone tasks was the FAA funding bill that needed closure, in order to pay air traffic controllers, repair many of the nation's runways, and generally keep air travel safe.

Once again, if you were a salaried employee at my business, I would fire you for such immature behavior.  Even teenage burger flippers are more responsible than that.  And we pay you, as senators and representatives, to get the important stuff done, not to punch a time clock.  Hourly employees punch the time clock; salaried employees stay until the job is done.  Do you not understand that?

If you don't understand that, then you've lived in Washington for too long.  It's time for you to come home permanently, and not just for the summer.

Now, traditionally, on summer break, you meet with your constituents back home.  This year, many of you are breaking with tradition and hiding from your constituents.  The number of so-called "town hall" meetings you are holding has been sharply curtailed, and many of these meetings have been replaced with invitation-only events, or events which carry an admission charge, or carefully scripted and fiercely moderated Internet events.  These events allow you (or your handlers) to control who has access to you, and what they're allowed to say to you.

In a way, I can understand the change.  On CNN and other television news outlets, we've seen video of town hall meetings and other face-to-face events in 2011, which have been hijacked by organized groups and used to promote their own narrow agendas.  Don't worry about those people.  Let them hijack the events.  The rest of us won't put up with it for long, and we'll use the power of We The People to shut down those disruptors.  But for you to attempt to hide from your constituents, and to surround yourselves with fans and sycophants, is cowardly and immature.  When we elected you, we thought you had more courage than that.

We can still vote you out of office.  And believe me, we will.  I'm surprised that none of you have faced a recall vote yet - my guess is that the inertia of the American voter is temporarily saving some of your hides.  But in November 2012, We The People will definitely make our voices heard.

And don't tell us you didn't see it coming.

Dear Congressman: you can still be fired, you know

To all of the members of the Congress of the United States:

Remember when I told you, on behalf of millions of fed-up Americans, that if you did not resolve this debt-limit crisis by the deadline, we would fire you? Well, you're not out of the woods yet.

The President and key Congressional leaders have hammered out a compromise solution to the crisis. Nobody is happy with it, but everybody can live with it. Our recommendation, the recommendation of WE THE PEOPLE, is that ALL OF YOU ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES approve the solution. Vote for it. Pass it.

It's a real shame that you had to wait until you heard the rumblings of the granite pillars on Wall Street, as the still-fragile US economy threatened to come crashing down again, before you finally got serious about this. You know, you can give all the speeches and press conferences and interviews that you want; you can talk and talk and talk because that seems to be THE ONLY THING YOU ARE ANY GOOD AT, but all that talk doesn't solve the nation's problems - and frankly, we're tired of hearing you talk.

I listened to an interview with a member of Congress on NPR this morning, and all this politician wanted to do was talk. He didn't want to answer the interviewer's questions, and he didn't want to report on how he was participating in resolving this crisis. He just wanted to talk. He wanted to make sure we all heard his side of the story. I just wanted him to SHUT UP AND GET TO WORK.

And that's why we elected you all in the first place. Shut up, roll up your sleeves, get to work, and fix things. That's what WE THE PEOPLE are doing, and you shouldn't be any different.

Oh, one more thing, in case you missed it: we, the people of the United States, are serious about this. And we're seriously pissed. At you.

Dear Congressman: get this done, or you're fired

To all of the members of the Congress of the United States:

I will make this simple. I speak for millions of Americans when I say this. Please listen carefully. Your jobs depend on it.

We are sick and tired of watching all the posturing and politicking that is going on in Washington right now. Your playing around with this debt-ceiling issue has to stop. You must put aside your party affiliations and your power-grabbing maneuvering. If you cannot do this one thing - that is, work TOGETHER to resolve this issue - then NONE OF YOU DESERVE TO HOLD your current jobs.

And we, the people, WE WILL FIRE YOU. We will elect a completely new slate of Senators and Representatives, a group who can and will work together for the common good, who know when it is time to set aside their differences and come up with solutions to complex problems, solutions that ultimately will benefit their constituents and the country as a whole.

If you were in private industry, you would have been thrown out on your asses long ago. Private enterprise would never stand for your stubbornness, your grandstanding, your ultimatums and your refusal to cooperate with each other.

Get it?

If you can't do this one thing, then you are a pathetic waste of taxpayer dollars, no matter how many other noble deeds you have done while in office. Ordinary Americans' livelihoods, not to mention the national economy, hang in the balance here, and you're farting around playing politics.

None of us want to hear your excuses. And don't bother blaming it on the other guys. We want deeds, not words. Get it done, or get out of the way so somebody else can get it done.