House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) unveiling his 2012 budget proposal last week.
(Getty)
One of the most basic functions that the House, Senate and President are supposed to accomplish is passing a budget and paying the bills. Seems pretty simple... you pass a law that costs X amount of dollars, so you raise that amount of money and pay for it. For most households is it that simple, assuming they have a steady income, but in Washington it's a totally different ballgame.
They're playing with other peoples' money, and in a lot of ways they're spending the money of people who aren't even grown up or born yet. Most people know that charging something to a credit card will mean they'll have to pay it later, which means later on they'll have less money to spend. But in Washington, they can just keep charging to the national credit card, and hope that they'll be out of office by the time it comes due, or they'll just blame it on the folks on the other side of the aisle.
Is there a way to make it more of a personal, visceral problem for lawmakers? The political nonprofit organization No Labels thinks so.
A few months ago they released a list of 12 point plan called 'Make Congress Work', filled with commonsensical ideas like up or down votes on presidential appointments, a monthly forum for members of Congress to ask the President questions (like question time in the British Parliament!), and forcing members of Congress to actually work three five day work weeks a month. I don't agree with all of them, but another that has caught a bit of fire lately is 'No Budget, No Pay', where Congress wouldn't get paid if they didn't pass the budget and the 13 appropriations bills on time, by Sept. 30, each year.
I'd go one step further, and make this apply to the President as well, since the Oval Office has a huge impact on budgetary matters as well.
Frankly, I didn't think this idea had any chance of going anywhere. But I got an email from No Labels just now, telling me that they managed to get Joe Lieberman to hold a hearing in his Committee (Homeland Security and Government Operations) on March 7th. I'd love to take them up on the offer to sit in on the hearing, but that doesn't fit into my personal budget right now. Given that Congress and the president haven't passed a budget in over a thousand days, wouldn't it be nice if it were the people holding that hearing who were having a hard time getting there because of money being tight?
I doubt it'll pass... but it should. If Congress can't fulfill the most basic bullet points on their job descriptions, they should not be paid.
Solomon Kleinsmith is a former nonprofit worker, serial social entrepreneur and strident centrist independent blogger from Omaha, Nebraska. His website, Rise of the Center, is the fastest growing blog targeting centrist independents and moderates.
Comments [6]
"Labels...get it?"
Yes - I very much get that you're being purposefully dense about this silly talking point about pretending No Labels' name literally means getting rid of labels.
Republicans have had problems with budgets in the past, and have done just as much to contribute to the situation we're in now where the government isn't bringing in enough money to pay it's bills. Democrats spend too much, and republicans tax too little. Put them together and you have a government who steals from our kids, because they can get away with it, give more from a magic pot of money to their base voters who buy their idiotic fairy tales and pretending it'll never need to be paid back.
"One of the most basic functions that the House, Senate and President are supposed to accomplish is passing a budget and paying the bills"
Agreed and labels are important.
The "Republican" House DID pass a budget.
The "Democrat"House did NOT pass a budget in 2010.
The "Democrat" Senate did NOT pass a budget in over 1000 days.
The "Democrat" President's budget was rejected 97-0.
Labels...get it?
Well, the problem with the minor premise - likening the Fed budget to a household's credit card -- is misapplied here. If I use my credit card to buy a new suit for a job interview and I get that new presumably better paying job (at least in part) because I now have the right 'look' then I have used that credit wisely. If I don't get the job, I will have less money per month as I erase that debt. The concept of borrowing money wisely has been lost. Banks can borrow from the Fed at record low rates, yet they loan it to consumers at 10-20- and for payday loaners nearly 30%! What's up with that?
The problem with the major premise - now laws, no pay -- is not 'commonsensical'. It is nonsensical. I can't think of a better way to guarantee that only millionaires run for Congress and that the split between national income and the distribution to the upper percentiles will only continue.
The House is broken because one seat in the House represents too many people. 700K to one is not a functional sample. Too much pandering to high dollar donors. Public financing or at least capping individual donors to $1,000 per cycle would be better for us all. I would like to see a rep to citizen ratio capped at around 150K. Where would all of those reps sit? At home on their Internet connected workstations, of course. Everybody does not get a committee assignment.
The Senate is broken because a forty-vote filibuster is being used as an anti-democratic choke on action. At least, make the filibuster-ers hold the floor and thereby lose all of that fund-raising face time. That might put a foot up their *sses.
For chrissake... anyone who's looked at No Labels for a few minutes knows that their name doesn't literally mean get rid of labels. That tripe got boring the day people started using it.
The last Pelosi led House passed no budget.
The current Democrat controlled US Senate has passed no budget in over 1000 days.
The Obama Administration submitted a farcical budget which was rejected by the US Senate 97-0.
The current Republican led House did pass a budget and submitted balanced budget and medicare reform proposals that have been rejected by the US Senate that refuses to offer a budget.
Sometimes labels are helpful unless the intention is to hide something.
ha... everyone has a lifestyle that theyd like to keep im positive congress does not want to let anything stop them from living thier life the way they want to...
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