Tom Mast, founder Solve American Gridlock
Just today my son Bill called me from Michigan. He was quite concerned about several aspects of Biden’s recent announcement of his intention to cancel considerable student debt, $300 billion this year according to the WSJ whose source was the Penn Wharton Budget Model. Setting aside the politics of the matter, Bill said he was having the most trouble knowing how this could be done because he had the understanding that no act of congress had authorized this loan forgiveness. In fact, Mrs. Pelosi has said publically that Congress would have to pass a law to cancel this student debt. #discord
Let’s focus our attention on how Bill, a company president, valedictorian, holder of three college degrees, could be wondering what is going on. If he is confused about how our government does things, there must be at least two hundred million other citizens in the same boat, and the media don’t help matters.
The president has said that he plans to use an Executive Order to forgive student loans. A quick look at the web reveals that the use of Executive Orders has gone on for a long time. However, it does seem that recent presidents of both parties have some feeling that if Congress won’t pass what they want, they will get it done some other way, something that the founders of our country did not have in mind when they strove to balance the powers of the three branches. It also seems that the use of Executive Orders has been extended to more expensive and more important matters.
I feel that this sad state of affairs is just one more symptom of the Congress’s lack of problem-solving abilities. We probably can agree that it is overloaded with responsibilities. But, its dysfunction caused by the perpetual battle between two parties almost evenly divided in size and numbers has led to a general perception that it can’t get the job done. Now, this doesn’t mean that just because it will not pass a certain piece of legislation, it is dysfunctional; after all, bad ideas arise in Congress and deserve to fail. However, Congress has been leaving huge issues lying on the table unsolved, and it does have an approval rating among the public that has been hovering around 20% for some time, lower that virtually all other classes of organizations. Note that this has continued to get worse through periods when Congress was under the control of each of the parties.
The problem extends to international matters. Congress even voluntarily and formally gave up some of its powers under the constitution to declare war with the result that we haven’t has good advice and counsel and statutory checks on presidential war-making powers for a long time.
So, “Houston, we have a problem!” What do we do about it? One hears that “the height of stupidity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results.” Congress needs to reclaim some of its prestige and powers to have a better balance in our federal government. I firmly believe that it cannot do this without changes in our electoral methods, changes that will pave the way for having more than two parties. What are they?
Use Ranked Choice Voting in primaries (if any) and in elections for Senators and Representatives
Get rid of single-member districts and Gerrymandering and replace them with Multi-Member Districts #gerrymandering
I am sorry that the answer is so simple; how about doing it promptly?
Comments