And their fiasco and small time thinking continues. For well over two hundred years Congress has functioned pretty well in its current format and procedures. However, we have entered a period of time where we need a "Super Congress" to do the work of the entire Congress. This "Super Congress," is composed of six Senators and six members from the House of Representatives, six Republicans and six Democrats. This Super Congress is supposed to come up with $1.5 TRILLION in additional cuts beyond those in the debt ceiling agreement by Thanksgiving, cuts that will be voted on as one package by the whole Congress. The political class could not do their job the traditional way so they had to invent another way to minimize the damage to their own personal political careers by creating another level of government bureaucracy, Super Congress, that they can hide behind.
Given this incompetence, let me propose a three option approach that would minimize the importance of the political class. It is somewhat whimsical since the political class is highly unlikely to agree to the terms of this three step process. However, my proposed approach has a better chance of succeeding than this Super Congress concept since it requires politicians take a stand for all Americans to see how courageous they are or are not, and not allow them to cower behind the Super Congress facade.
The first option in the process involves some excellent work done by the Bipartisan Policy Center and their Debt Reduction Task Force. This task force was headed by former Republican New Mexican Senator Pete Domenci and Democrat Alice Rivlin, the original director of the Congressional Budget Office. They have come up with an excellent, in-depth analysis and proposal that would reduce Federal government debt by over $6 TRILLION. It is a balanced approach that recommends significantly more spending cuts than tax increases and does a pretty good job of spreading the pain across the entire country.
Given their detailed work, lets use their $6 TRILLION as the target for debt reduction. Lets also use the model that has worked in the past that the political class has used historically to duck its responsibilities. For example, when it was obvious that the country needed to reduce the number of military bases the military was operating, the politicians could not bring themselves to vote on individual bases since the politicians were deathly afraid that even though it might be the right decision for the nation, it might cost them a few votes.
Rather than endanger their reelection chances, the political class came up with the concept of the base closing commission that would take the heat for recommending what bases to close. The politicians set up a process where they could only vote for what the commission recommended in total, they could not change or cherry pick the commission's findings. Thus, they could hide behind what the commission recommended and what Congress voted on in total, not on individual bases.
The commission's recommendations were approved and the political class could go back to their districts and states, claiming they had no choice in a specific base closing, they did not have the power to keep a particular base open since it was part of the total recommendation.
Thus, rather than be put through what is likely to be another agonizing and ineffective Congressional process, skip the Super Congress step and force every Congressional member to give a thumbs up or thumbs down on the total recommendation from the Bipartisan Policy Center's task force recommendation. Given their history, it is highly probable that our politicians will not be able to come up with anything close to this proposal from a quality and detailed perspective. Force them to make a decision on the Bipartisan Policy Center's recommended plan and do not allow them to avoid their responsibilities.
That would be the first option and the preferred solution since it would get us past the partisan nickel and dime discussions and the grandstanding of every politician on every option and decision. However, if the political class did not want to go this route, they could go to the second option. This would repeat the process from the first step but rather than go with the Bipartisan Policy Center's $6 TRILLION debt reduction plan, let's substitute Obama's debt reduction commission's $4 TRILLION debt reduction plan.
The President put this commission in place and they did a fabulous job coming up with a comprehensive program that Obama, Pelosi, and Reid completely ignored. This step would bypass the obstacle that is Reid and Pelosi, who blocked any chance of the commission's recommendations reaching the floor of Congress. This option would force every politician to vote for the commission's work, yes or no. If the majority of Congress votes for the commission's work in total, it would become law.
The third option would get much more dramatic if the first two options fail to provide a real path to fiscal responsibility. This option would lock every member of the House of Representatives in one room and every Senator in another room. The politicians in each room would then vote on EVERY component of the Federal government, no matter how small, on whether that function, organization, strategy, tax loophole, etc., should be discontinued.
They would not be allowed to come out of that room until they approve $6 TRILLION in debt reduction. No cell phones, no computer access, just brute force review of all debt reduction options, regardless of how long it takes. I would allow only bread and water into the room but that might be a little too much over the top.
Once the House room comes up with their $6 TRILLION in reduction items and the Senate room comes up with their $6 TRILLION in reduction items, the two lists would be compared. Common items between the two lists would be considered approved for reduction. If the common reductions do not get to $6 TRILLION, the two groups would then go back into their respective rooms and repeat the process in another attempt to get to $6 TRILLION. This process would repeat itself until the $6 TRILLION was attained.
While I would be willing to pass on the bread and water issue, I would add two other conditions. First, no five week vacations until the process is done. In fact, not a single day vacation until the process is done.
Second, nobody in Congress gets paid until the process is done. In California, state legislators do not get paid if they are late delivering a valid state government budget. Under this process, nobody in Congress gets paid until the $6 TRILLION debt reduction target is attained.
Under this option, each politician can hide by the secrecy of the closed door sessions. A Republican can say they voted against tax hikes but they got passed anyway by their peers. A Democrat can say they tried to protect a useless social program but it got killed by the bigger group. This step, along with the first two options, plays right into the lack of courage of the political class, providing them air cover for their reelection while forcing a coherent debt reduction program.
Einstein once said. "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." We cannot solve our national debt problem by using the same, less than courageous political class and same dysfunctional political processes that got us into this mess. The debt ceiling debacle proves how right Einstein was. If I am willing to drop my bread and water demand, I demand that Pelosi and Reid drop their blockage of votes on these three options.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com/
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