|
| |
May 22, 2000 Opinion: Broken Process - a reason
 | It is obvious that the budget process is broken, and there are no clear paths to fixing
it. The House recently rejected reform legislation, including biennial budgeting.
We are headed for another round of gridlock in the process, as well as potential
shutdowns again. The majority leadership in Congress is pleading with its members to
refrain from introducing amendments to appropriations bills that are not related to
appropriations matters. What is going on here? This opinion piece is about a
seldom addressed but real change that contributes to the broken process. |
| What has changed to make these gridlocks? We should consider the social changes
related to the Congress itself as a contributor to the problem. Congress is creating
much "road kill" in the way it does business these days. This is a social
problem. A system originally intend to result in decisions after deliberations was
based on the assumption that there would be personal discussions among representatives.
This had to be based on personal interaction. These interactions were assumed
as a given (there was no other option) when the deliberative bodies (Senate and House)
would meet - there was nothing else to do but to discuss the issues round the clock, in
session or out of session! No TV, no radio, no airplanes - no jet airplanes! No
place to go but be stuck in New York or Washington, talk to your fellow representatives of
the people, and try to be civil to each other since you would have to deal with them for
at least a few weeks if not months, day after day after day. With enough days at this,
eventually you get to know the other idiot, and you may grant him, grudgingly, some IQ
level above single digits. |
| Today things are different. You throw your bomb, get on the limo or BMW, get to Ronald
Reagan Washington National Airport in ten minutes, park at the VIP lot, and get out of
town in less than an hour after your wonderful bombing raid! Be back home before it gets
dark Thursday evening. Reverse the cycle Tuesday morning, you pretend that the ones you
bombed the preceding Thursday are morons, and start throwing bombs before sunset on
Tuesday. Easy to do with jet airplanes. You don't really have to know the other
person. There is no longer a social system in place, and Congress is no different
from the crazed drivers on the Beltway (I-95 and I-495) who think of the other driver as
nothing more than potential road kill, simply waiting to be actualized as such by them. In
fact, they think that they have a mission for actualizing the road kill! You cannot have a
society on this basis, and Congress reflects the same problem. Hence gridlock. |
| Rather than a deliberative body that takes into account all aspects of an issue, we now
have a polarized and Balkanized body with few, if any, social underpinnings to ameliorate
the policy and ideological differences. I do not mean to imply that this is the only
reason, or that this is uniquely new - after all, before TV and airplanes and cars we did
end up with the Civil War. But the lesser amounts of socialization among
representatives is a factor that contributes to what we see going on in the budget
process. What to do about it? Watch the presidential candidates - they seem to
be tired of the same old personalized fights in Washington, and seem to be acting as if
some of this mattered. |
|
