It would help if the “bipartisan, bicameral Select Committee to design a package of budget process changes to improve the timeliness and efficiency of federal budgeting” that Brookings refers to were something other than a strategy for doing nothing while appearing to be doing something.
Our experience is not good. Bowles-Simpson. Peterson-Pew. Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Kerrey-Danforth. Plenty of good ideas. Not much in the way of practical results.
Congress has decided that its best strategy is to do nothing and there is a bipartisan consensus on that. That’s the bureaucrat’s decision. You’re less likely to get blamed for doing nothing than for doing the wrong thing. Is it any wonder that Congress’s approval rating is significantly lower than Trump’s?
As Sam Clemens put it more than a century ago, the U. S. has no native criminal class excepting, of course, the Congress. Or Will Rogers 90 years ago: “This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.”
Large percentages of Americans think their owner Congressmen are corrupt, under the control of special interests, and out of touch with their districts. Nonetheless they’re returned to office year after year because 51% (and I do mean 51%) of voters think they deserve to be re-elected. That’s the untold story of the last election. Most incumbents were re-elected.
