What do you like about Congress?
If you live on the political right you may be grateful that they are doing everything they can to impede the President’s policies. But, are you happy that the Republican-controlled congresses of 2002-2006 oversaw record-breaking rises in the deficit, record-breaking increases in debt, the greatest expansion of the federal government since FDR, and more government intrusion into our daily lives?
If you live on the political left you’re probably frustrated with the Democratic majority in Congress right now. Why is it that when Democrats control both houses and the presidency no Democratic initiatives can gain traction? Why is it that the same Democratic Senators who oppose a public option are also the ones getting truckloads of money from health insurance companies?
Congress got a bump in confidence after the 9/11 attacks, but looking over the past 15 years the average is that 2/3s of the US population are dissatisfied with the work Congress is doing.
Is it possible to have a Congress we think is doing a good job?
Lawrence Lessig takes the current administration to task for failing to live up to its campaign rhetoric and provides a map for finding our way to a better Congress; a Congress that responds to the people who elect it rather than the corporations who fund it.
Here’s Lessig’s 4-minute video pitch for why you should read this article.
Lessig argues that the first step in Congressional reform is to support the Fair Elections Now Act. You can learn more at Fix Congress Now.
Lessig recapitulates much of the argument in the article linked to above in the video embedded below.
“On the right (the tea party) and the left (MoveOn and Bold Progressives), there is an unstoppable recognition that our government has failed. But both sides need to understand the source of its failure if either or, better, both together, are to respond.”
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“Yet the single attribute least attributed to Congress, at least in the minds of the vast majority of Americans, is just that: integrity. And this is because most believe our Congress is a simple pretense. That rather than being, as our framers promised, an institution “dependent on the People,” the institution has developed a pathological dependence on campaign cash. The US Congress has become the Fundraising Congress. And it answers–as Republican and Democratic presidents alike have discovered–not to the People, and not even to the president, but increasingly to the relatively small mix of interests that fund the key races that determine which party will be in power.”
