Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Politics Jim Cooper Dissects the Devolution of Congress
Posted by Brantley Hargrove on Wed, May 11, 2011 at 7:37 AM
The national debt is actually $50 trillion, not $15 trillion (marinate on that for a moment). "Because Congress has exempted itself and the federal government from normal accounting rules, few people notice our unfunded obligations. Harvard Law Professor Howell Jackson is a rare leader; his research and writing have repeatedly shown the inadequacy of government accounting. But not even The Wall Street Journal reports the real “accrual” numbers—the numbers that reveal all the obligations that have been undertaken, not just the actual transfers of money. Few interest groups pressure the federal government to implement accrual accounting, so Congress sleeps. President Obama’s Fiscal Commission was unable to wake us."
In Contemporary America, you don't vote for politicians, the politicians vote for you (said with thick Russian accent). "Today, both Democrats and Republicans are trying to hide the fact that regular voters have no voice in redistricting. It’s a reverse election: voters like you don’t get to vote, only politicians do. You don’t choose them; they choose you. In most states the public is excluded from participating in their state legislatures’ deliberations on redistricting. This secret election can determine the outcome of most congressional elections for the next ten years, possibly for generations."
Money talks. "In other words current law allows Congress to be flooded with money but demands that members stay dry. Good luck with that theory. You might as well allow professional athletes to take money from gamblers, so long as they promise not to throw any games."
And thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, it will only get worse. "A better name for Citizens United is Corporations Supreme. The Court should stop emancipating these artificial persons, these business robots. This year the Court is considering giving corporations privacy and due process rights. What’s next? Voting rights for corporations and unions?"
Performance pay? "In politics as in life, you get what you pay for. In politics today, taxpayers are hiring mediocre talent, candidates who think their job is to duck the big policy issues in order to get elected and reelected. Fixed salaries do more to perpetuate the status quo than most people realize.
Today, it is almost unthinkable to suggest paying Congress for results. Many other professionals, however, such as teachers, physicians, CEOs and athletes, are increasingly paid for performance. Why not members of Congress? (Note: I am not advocating an overall congressional pay raise.) The first objections will come from members themselves because they hate the thought of taking full responsibility, looking bad, or making less money than a colleague. It is precisely that fear, however, that promotes better behavior. Why not pay members of Congress for performance? Surely there’s a way to measure and reward high-quality legislative work."
Locally grown. "Salary reform alone won’t get the job done, so here’s another thought experiment: what if members could only raise money from people who live in their districts, not outside interests? That would put a premium on residency and raise the stakes of redistricting. It would also give local taxpayers more influence."
Comments (8)
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I've voted for Cooper in the past, and against him in the past... but every single time I vote -- no matter which direction -- I always find something to like about the serious thought that Cooper puts behind both his stated positions and the execution of his job. For a politician, he actually sounds (gosh) _analytical_. Which for a currently standing member of Congress is about like finding a Coelacanth in your own toilet bowl.
I may steal that graphic, Ashley.
I like Jim a lot, but I think the performance pay idea is pretty bogus, because it would be nearly impossible to implement an effective model for evaluating legislator performance. Besides, isn't that what elections are for?
Performance pay always sounds good, but it rarely works in public service jobs. For example, basing teacher performance pay on standardized testing results doesn't produce more accomplished teachers or better educated students. It only produces teachers who are better at teaching to the test. Or, as has been alleged in D.C., at cheating to make sure the test scores are high.
Jim Cooper is being honest; Congress is dysfunctional, corrupt, inept and counterproductive. It's not that the Master Plan was flawed; the Founders just didn't foresee the debilitating effect that the 2-party system would have on the republican democracy.
Gerrymandering, or re-districting, is actually a gentleman's agreement to not seriously contest each other, whenever possible, by conceding whole turfs to the opposition, in reciprocal "fixes". This saves the parties time and money, guarantees incumbency and produces "democracy-lite"...a low-calorie substitute for the real thing.
Eh, Cooper's soundbites sound good, but he votes with his party 79% of the time, which makes him an enthusiastic deficit spender. Time to really cut taxes, Mr. Pennypincher.
Obama seems intent on making good those unfunded mandates with Monopoly money.
The whining about redistricting is nonsense. Everybody still has one vote, and now Democrats will receive their payback!
Cooper is right about politicians who lack the resolve to do the right thing, himself included. The Tea Party's work is not yet done.
""The Tea Party's work is not yet done."
No, they still have to make sure the Republican nominee runs so far to the right during the primaries that he (or she) won't have a shot at the independent vote. They've also still got a shot at driving the U.S. economy over a cliff with their bad economic sense but they will have to work harder at that since the economy continues to improve, despite the Tea Party's best efforts to turn us into a Banana Republic. And the irresponsible, "let's just keep cutting taxes" brigade is what got us into this mess. Cooper is actually a real grown up in Washington, who like Reagan, recognizes that sometimes raising taxes is the fiscally prudent thing to do.
I've also got a feeling that 2012 is not going to be as great a day as some of our friends on the right think it's going to be. Democrats are actually ahead on the generic congressional ballot (they were behind by 6 points going into 2010) and Americans have started to notice the Republican overreach.
