Is Congress Doomed?

            Throughout this semester, I’ve had the pleasure to follow a pretty interesting Congressman, Charlie Dent. It was the perfect semester to follow him, considering he become more known than he ever was after coming out against his party a few times. Although I learned a lot about Dent, I really learned more about Congress in general. So here’s the big question: Is Congress doomed? After studying Congress for an entire semester, I believe the answer is maybe. I believe that if Congress doesn’t get its act together soon, doomed wont be the only word to describe this legislative body. Members are too focused on re-election and short-term goals, and this is becoming harmful to the American people and jeopardizing our legitimacy on a global scale. With parties getting further apart, moderates getting further from the middle, and extremists becoming more common, Congress needs to shape up if it wants any chance to be respected by the American people.

            One of my favorite and most informative posts this semester was the post comparing Charlie Dent to Mayhew’s article on the Electoral Connection. In this post, I discussed the way that Dent fits the views of Mayhew’s in that he may only be interested in electoral goals. Although he may have some party goals mixed in there, the strive to be re-elected is taking over Congress in a very negative way. Each member of Congress is so focused on re-election that they lose sight of what job they were elected to do. When Congress is attempting any legislation, each member of Congress knows what they have to do in order to get re-elected and they refuse to change their positions. This makes compromise impossible. Because of the extreme partisanship, members are at risk of their constituents or their party going against them in the next election if they compromise on certain issues. For example, during the government shutdown the majority of Republicans were not going to compromise on Obamacare because they knew the backlash they would get if they did. Many of them ran for office on the notion that they would do everything they can to get rid of Obamacare as a whole, and if they did compromise, some members felt that their position would be at risk. Because getting re-elected is their only goal, members of Congress are unable to get any big legislation through. No one is willing to compromise and put him or herself at risk, even if it means keeping the government running. With the combination of extreme partisanship and the focus on re-election, if Congress doesn’t change this aspect it will be doomed for the future.

            Because Congress is so focused on re-election, they are beginning to lose sight of the American people. In my most recent post, I discussed a really interesting talk by Bruce Oppenheimer that discusses the problems with Congress. A main problem that he discussed had to do with the fact that it is so hard to get certain important legislation passed if it has short-term costs and long-term benefits. These types of legislation (health care, energy, etc) are things that the American public would truly benefit from. Unfortunately, members of Congress would have to put out costs right away, but the benefits that the American people would receive would come much later, potentially even after these members of Congress are out of office. Because they’re Congressional brains are wired to focus on their electorate future, this type of legislation takes a back seat as compared to legislation that benefits people immediately. It is also hard to convince the American people that the long-term benefits are worth it, so members of Congress refuse to risk their positions by passing this type of legislation even if they know how much it will benefit everyone. They would rather focus on credit claiming legislation that proves beneficial right away, with low costs, the way the American people like it.

            Although these problems with Congress are pretty obvious, I discovered another problem after reading all of my posts this semester. One week I would talk about how great of a job Dent was doing, and then by the next week I was talking about how two-faced he was being. There was never a true consensus with my posts; each one expressed a different view on Dent. This is because members of Congress are inconsistent. One week they do great things, like Dent trying his best to help end the government shut down. But then, they do things that make you question them, such as Dent voting consistently with his party after he publically came out against them. They put on one face for the American public, and a whole different face to their colleagues. It is hard for the American people to place any trust in Congress when opinions on members change week to week. They do whatever they can to guarantee re-election even if it means being extremely inconsistent. They try to make the American people believe that they are all attempting compromise, but behind the scenes they are doing everything but. By Congress doing this, they are losing legitimacy in the eyes of the American people.

            Overall, the combination of having an extremely partisan government and the notion that they all just want to get re-elected, Congress is asking for failure. Until they figure out a way to look past re-election and compromise, Congress is just going to continue to get more and more illegitimate. We are supposed to be the World Superpower, and if we want to stay that way we cannot have a broken Congress. It’s affecting us negatively on a world scale, a national scale, and a personal scale. People everywhere are suffering because Congress can’t figure out how to do their job. If they want any future in this country, things have got to change. If things stay the way they are, our country is going to continue to suffer. CONGRESS AS AN INSTITUTION MUST CHANGE!!!!!

P.S. Best solution: Leah Messler for President