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Criticism and Suggestions to Fix Congress

Fri= day, March 13, 2009

12:= 10 PM

From a former congress man

Ways Fallen Sh= ort

  1. Budget is out of control
    1. Budget process broken
    2. Congress can't reign in spending or tax cuts
  1. Too responsive to narrow interest groups
    1. Rewards big time contributors
  1. Failed/Refused to deal with flaws in electoral syste= m
    1. Voter registration
    2. Ways elections run in different areas
    3. Mostly in hands of par= tisan office holders
    4. Should be taken care of nationally
  1. Congress is polarized
    1. Before 1994, Congress was more willing to talk and compromise
    2. More civil and less pa= rty hard line
    3. Now many votes are str= ict party line - little middle ground
    4. Middle has eroded
  1. Fairness in legislative process
    1. Majority rules at all time/all costs
    2. No consensus building
    3. (Obama is trying - doe= s not seem successful)
  1. Refused to look seriously at reforming itself=
    1. Committee structure outdated
    2. Does not fit into dive= rse nation
    3. Can't oversee executive branch
    4. Can not overcome it's = own turf battles
  1. Does not spend enough time at its job
    1. 3 days a week is not enough
    2. Too much time campaign= ing
  1. Congress has seceded its war powers to the president=
    1. Founders explicitly let Congress does that
    2. Yet Congress has rolle= d over
MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Location: file:///C:/26451A78/page28.htm Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charset="utf-8"

Criticism and Suggestions to Fix Congress

Fri= day, March 13, 2009

12:= 10 PM

From a former congress man

Ways Fallen Sh= ort

  1. Budget is out of control
    1. Budget process broken
    2. Congress can't reign in spending or tax cuts
  1. Too responsive to narrow interest groups
    1. Rewards big time contributors
  1. Failed/Refused to deal with flaws in electoral syste= m
    1. Voter registration
    2. Ways elections run in different areas
    3. Mostly in hands of par= tisan office holders
    4. Should be taken care of nationally
  1. Congress is polarized
    1. Before 1994, Congress was more willing to talk and compromise
    2. More civil and less pa= rty hard line
    3. Now many votes are str= ict party line - little middle ground
    4. Middle has eroded
  1. Fairness in legislative process
    1. Majority rules at all time/all costs
    2. No consensus building
    3. (Obama is trying - doe= s not seem successful)
  1. Refused to look seriously at reforming itself=
    1. Committee structure outdated
    2. Does not fit into dive= rse nation
    3. Can't oversee executive branch
    4. Can not overcome it's = own turf battles
  1. Does not spend enough time at its job
    1. 3 days a week is not enough
    2. Too much time campaign= ing
  1. Congress has seceded its war powers to the president=
    1. Founders explicitly let Congress does that
    2. Yet Congress has rolle= d over