Congress Reaches Extraordinary Low

I’ve been around for quite some time and I’ve never seen a congress as bad as what we’ve seen in the last four years and I didn’t think it could get worse – until this week!
by Charlie Leck

I used to argue vociferously with an old-old friend of mine from Colorado when he would get on his soapbox and begin proposing that U.S. congressional terms be limited to a single term – that House terms should be increased to four years and Senate terms should be kept at six, but that no member of Congress could succeed himself/herself. Now I’m starting to think that this old, feeble-minded, babbling fellow might have had something after all and I send him apologies for all the time I wasted arguing with him.

What changed my mind?
Well, it’s quite simple. No living person has been witness to a Congress of more embarrassing character and/or a less productive one than the ones we’ve witnessed over the last four years. And, I am not going to point to either party here. They both (the parties) reek with an odor that is unbearable even from this distance.

Shame on Congress!
“Shame, shame, shame,” as Gomer might have said. You silly bastards have made absolute fools of yourselves and your constituents are blushing and fuming with anger. If you had any character at all – the lot of you – you would now promise not to run for another term. Get the hell off of this pot because you’ve had long enough to sit there without doing anything!

Once, in a letter to a friend, Mark Twain wrote of Congress…

“…the smallest minds and the selfishest souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes…

In other places, Twain wrote of Congress…

 “It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress…

“…I never can think of Judas Iscariot without losing my temper. To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature, Congressman.”

The current Congress would, I am betting, leave Mr. Twain speechless (and that is an act of near impossibility).

Let me be more specific!
Congress just bailed out of Washington for a several weeks adjournment in order to get some restful vacation time for its members. The question I ask is: Rest from what? They haven’t done a blamed thing but chatter and chitter and obfusgate and interfere and obstruct for the last 41 months. Does one need rest from that?

We are currently having a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border! Has Congress addressed the issue and come up with a solution? No!

Retiring Congresswoman Michele Bachmann boasted this week that the House had completely raped a proposal to do something about the border problem: “I was a ‘hell no,’ and now I can be for this bill today. We completely gutted the bill [written by the leaders],” she said. Boy! Will we miss the Congresswoman! She is the greatest embarrassment that I have ever witnessed in the U.S. Congress. Shame on the sixth district in Minnesota for electing her!

The Senate Leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, shut down the legislative process in the Senate because it was such a wretched waste of time. Shame on Senator Reid for not leading! Shame on Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky for constantly obstructing Senator Reid rather than working with him for compromises!

The Senate couldn’t even get to the point on taking a vote on a measure that would have disallowed tax deductions for the moving expenses of corporations that are moving out of the nation! Did you read that? Did you clearly understand it? We will allow corporations who are abandoning America to take tax deductions on the expense to do so.

“Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.” [Mark Twain]

And, good old Uncle Milty, who many of my readers will not know about, had this to say…

“You can lead a man to Congress, but you can’t make him think!” [Milton Berle]

And, President Polk, during his term in office, said…

“There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress than I had any conception of before I became President of the United States.” [James K. Polk]

And, I am telling you this is the very worst Congress in the history of the nation for God’s sake!

“If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour.” [Thomas Jefferson]

The NY Times points out that there doesn’t appear to be any hope of action in Congress even on items about which the two parties are in agreement…

“More broadly, Congress has given no indication that other major issues of the day will be confronted this year, even on matters where members of both parties agree urgent action is needed.” [New York Times article by Jonathan Weisman and Ashley Parker]

All of this while highways and highway bridges are crumbling, the immigration situation is an absolute disaster, western states need emergency funding to fight raging wild fires, there is war in eastern Europe, and Gaza is being destroyed from within and without. And, no one can figure out how to stop entitlements from financially strangling us. On top of this there are a number of environmental issues that must be addressed before it is too late

The greatest crisis America has ever faced!
A dysfunctional congress may be called the greatest crisis that America has ever faced! If it is, history will have no problem pointing the finger at those who caused and fomented the crisis. No problem at all.

I think it is going to take a rework of our constitution (regarding the makeup of Congress and its powers) in order to get this thing straightened out. The United States Congress is hurting America deeply and doing nothing at all to fix the nation’s problems.

God help America!

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