Make Congress Great Again?

At RealClearPolicy Richard Protzmann has a proposal for lowering the temperature of our political discourse—the title of this post:

The next president may relinquish power to the Congress, but the institution itself must reform. The greatness of the US Congress compromised and major bipartisan legislation a thing of the past. The next president can start a trend in the other direction, but it will take a mandate from the voters, restraint by the executive, and sweeping reforms of the legislature. Simply put, Congress is not equipped to serve its own purpose unless and until it shifts its rules and processes from a power-driven to a service-driven model.

To effect that he suggests the following measures:

• Terms limits
• Restrictions on lobbying practices
• Change the rules for hearings and investigations to encourage “thoroughness and informed witness examinations and deliberations”.
• Take back its oversight responsibilities
• Fund itself sufficiently to do its job

The obvious retort to his plea to “make Congress great again” is when was it ever great? I would remind you of Sam Clemens’s wisecrack about Congress: “there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” That goes back 130 years. Or this one from Will Rogers “Papers say: ‘Congress is deadlocked and can’t act.’ I think that is the greatest blessing that could befall this country.” That’s a century old. Or, more recently, Dave Barry: “We must always remember that, as Americans, we all have a common enemy — an enemy that is dangerous, powerful and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.”

Mr. Protzmann’s suggestions will meet with opposition from many sides not the least of which is from members of Congress. The status quo suits them just fine. It enables them to avoid taking responsibility for anything, serve lifetime terms, and retire with a pension. What’s not to like? And according to Gallup in the run-up to the November elections 29% of Americans thought that members of Congress deserved re-election while 60% thought their own representatives were deserving of re-election. Just for the record I voted against my own Congressman on Election Day.