No Loss for Words

What we saw over the week-end was a demonstration that John Boehner is no different than Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. They apparently think it’s okay to create significant legislation without input from their members in secret. It makes it hard to have confidence in Boehner as Speaker of the House of Representatives to do the right thing. He’s no better than Harry or Nancy.

The fact that Boehner and Reid may have conspired to create bad legislations is secondary to the real problem; elected officials failed to follow their own rules required to pass legislation.

The Congress in both houses has a committee structure that is designed to promote public review and member debate on the merits of proposed legislation. One of the desirable aspects of our government is the requirement that the actions be deliberative. Nobody likes to have to pass it before we learn what’s in it.

And yet, the “elite” leadership in the House (from both parties) did conspire with Senate Majority Leader Reid to craft legislation authorizing government spending of more than a Trillion Dollars without the opportunity for members of either party to even know what they were being asked to vote on.

In his wisdom, Speaker Boehner recognized that his caucus was not united in support of his plan so he enlisted the special interests of the Democrat opposition to cobble together enough votes to pass a bad bill to the Senate where outgoing Senate Majority Leader Reid faced a similar struggle assembling enough votes from both sides of the aisle to slip it past the Senate and the rest of us. With the help of “incentives” they were successful.

I think what I object to at the base level is the use of omnibus legislation period. I don’t like the idea of special interest combined bills that sell good government down the river for the votes of pork barrel voters.

I’m wondering what all the congressional budget committees have been working on if they aren’t the ones that proposed the bill that was passed so quickly. I’m wondering how the House Committee Chairs that attached riders to a budget bill without debate in their committees.

Being a supporter of the Republican side of the process, I am not encouraged with the performance of my guys. I got nothing.  I am not pleased with the underhanded tactics employed by Boehner and McCarthy. If this is the leadership my party is proposing for the coming year, I’m not feeling too good.

One of the reasons American voters turned out the D’s in the fall elections was a lack of transparency. That would be the decision making in secret without member debate and public observation. That would be flat out lying to us.

Early in my public service career, my mentor Kelly Robinson taught me the importance of process in government. The absolute need to develop public processes that insure participation by all parties (and I don’t mean political parties) so that the collaborative outcome has legitimacy. I didn’t say fair or just, I did say legitimate since fairness or justness are fleeting. If we agree on rules we operate under in advance then we should be legit; the caveat being suspension of the rules because of “emergency”. Think about how many times your elected officials told you they needed to respond to the emergency which allows them to suspend their own rules and their accountability.

We elect these full time legislators and pay them handsome salaries with benefits to do the business of government and yet they are constantly working in “emergency” mode. What’s with that? If they weren’t in “recess” all the time they might get something done.

As unfortunate as it might be, Jonathan Gruber was right; the American public is stupid. And for my team, the conservatives, the leadership within the Beltway is in full agreement with him. The term “political elite” applies to both parties. Sadly, the thought that our elected officials are there to serve us is just not true. After a single term in office, the establishment determines whether a newcomer is suitable for membership in the club (that is a team player) and with that almost a guaranteed job for life serving the club and not the constituents that repeatedly elect them.

I am challenged to defend Republicans for their behavior and decisions by people I meet in my community. I have always said that the further from the constituents an elected official works, the less they feel obligated to those constituents and the poorer the quality of government. I know that when we do our homework and know what is in the hearts of our candidates by their past deeds (and to a lesser extent their words) we can decide whether to send them to a government job far, far away. It’s character, honesty and morality that will define their service.

I don’t like it when our elected officials fail to do their jobs and the result is threatening to “shut down” the government. I guess if you fail to do your job, you are in continual emergency mode.

Leadership is one of the qualities we expect in every candidate we elect. I can’t think of a position where the candidate doesn’t talk about his leadership qualities. What I am seeing in our federal government is a failure of leadership at every level. I don’t have much confidence that many of the 537 elected officials in Washington DC are working on my behalf.

I don’t want the government to shut down, I want everyone on the job who should be on the job. That includes those elected officials on the job, doing their jobs. I don’t want my congress woman to tell me that she is not part of the leadership and she can’t control the agenda. I want her to stand up in the House and demand that she and her colleagues be included in the process of government. If that means she’s rattling the cage, so be it. Edmund Burke hit the nail on the head when he said “All that is necessary for evil to prevail is that good men do nothing.” Bad government can only happen if good men and women choose to let it happen.

I guess if you are corrupt then being silent makes perfect sense. I’m coming to the conclusion that since so many of them are silent, they must be of questionable character if they are not corrupt.

The burden of good government starts with each and every one of us holding our elected officials accountable by not being silent. Like I said, evil can only prevail if good men and women do nothing.

Regardless of your political point of view, I encourage you to start looking at what your government is doing to you. Not for you, but to you. Government is not serving the people and longer, we are serving the government. I’m sorry, but our Constitution specifically doesn’t provide for that. Please join me as we begin the process of holding our government accountable by not being silent.