Congress vs. The People

With the loss of some incumbents in this year’s primary and the squeakers by some of the other incumbents, it is important to understand how the influence over these races is handled by the incumbents in office. It is said in politics that the hardest thing to do is beat an incumbent so I thought I might shine some light on this. There are three basic advantages the incumbents have; the ability to keep their campaign accounts open, send out free mailers while in office, and the biggest advantage is to have congressional campaign committees to work for them.

Firstly, each congressman can go ahead and keep campaign fundraising and create the traditional “War Chest.” That means that during their term of service a congressman can continue to fundraise for the upcoming election while their opponents will be limited to only fundraising after the date they can file their appropriate state paperwork for office. Not really fair, but hey, it’s the incumbents making those rules.

Secondly, each congressman can continue to send out mailers to their constituency via their congressional “updates” which are essentially propaganda packets similar to the mailers you will be getting from them during the election with one exception…..they don’t make harsh mention of their opponents. By the way, these aren’t free; they’re usually paid for with tax money (Your Money) and/or possibly with that aforementioned War Chest we talked about.

Lastly, the one that really cries of the cronyism we all confess to despise, congressional campaign committees. Both the senate and the House have them as do both parties as well. These committees are supposed to help each party build majorities in their respective chamber; however, in recent times they have become an incumbent protection syndicate. Money is raised by these entities and rather than sit out of the primaries, as they should, these committees use their money and influence to protect their incumbent brethren.

A few weeks ago in the race for the 7^th Congressional District of Virginia, incumbent Eric Cantor, who also serves as the House Majority Leader, was beaten by a political novice in the form of College Professor named Dave Brat. Following his defeat by a Republican in the Republican Primary, the House GOP Congressional Committee’s leaders said that had they known Cantor was in jeopardy they would have offered more support in the primary – WHAT!!!!!

Sounds crazy……But that’s the norm.

Let’s look at two other recent cases for examples of this self-protectionism.

In 2011, with redistricting up for debate and legal action in Texas, there was much confusion over who would run in which district. In the newly drawn Texas 35^th District, Democrat Joaquin Castro was preparing to run for office; however, Rep. Steve Israel, leader of the DCCC, or the House Democratic Campaign Committee, said they would support sitting Representative Lloyd Doggett who had also been drawn into that new District. Israel said, “We have a theocracy at the DCCC that we support sitting incumbents, across the board, in every case, we support sitting incumbents.” It’s okay, Joaquin just ran for office in another District where the Democrat incumbent was retiring – Problem Solved.

Before you think I am going off against the Democrats, let me provide another example in order to show you that this is not a “Democrat vs. Republican” issue, but it’s an “us against the entrenched incumbents” sort of issue. Just this last week we saw the same sort of protectionist agenda in the case of Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran. Following a pretty healthy, or unhealthy, loss to State Senator Chris McDaniel in the Mississippi GOP Primary and the aforementioned loss of Eric Cantor in Virginia, the National Republican Senatorial Committee injected the Cochran Campaign with fundraisers and influence in order to secure a victory for a career politician who first went to Washington in 1973 – think about that! That’s a lot of protection!!

In the last few years most people, Democrat and Republican, have been clamoring for the replacement of congressmen all over the United States, BUT HOW? There has been a small amount of incumbents beat in the last few years, but not enough to force the change America needs. Now I’m not saying they all need to be removed (maybe 90%), but there does need to be some serious change in order for America to progress forward. Unfortunately, with incumbents holding the aces with War Chests, Free Mailers, and Campaign Committees in their pockets, there doesn’t seem like much for the rest of us to do.

BUT THERE IS!

We must let these cats out of the bag. Question our Congressman, both at the state and national level. Be active in the political scene. Years ago it was said politics was one of those subjects a person didn’t bring up in civilized conversation – NOT ANYMORE! If you’re comfortable with the direction of where your state and country are headed then do nothing. But if you believe things must change then all of us, each and every one of us, Republican or Democrat, must step forward and make our voices heard. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it requires you to step out of your comfort box. But unless you are comfortable with mediocrity, and possibly losing the very country we hold dear, then we must all stand and make a difference.

Remember, Congress is counting on you not getting involved!!

Batter Up!

Bill

CBO Scoring

Just a quick note on the Federal Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and their scoring process – OK, quick for me.

As designed, the CBO was set up to be a non-partisan federal agency inside the federal legislature that among other things would score, or project, the future efficiency of a bill before debating and voting on a bill. This organization has worked well in the past, but has been little noticed up until the beginning of the Obama Administration. Suddenly, the CBO has become big news over and over as we try and determine just how much damage the actions taken by the country’s Democrat leadership will actually do to our country.

Now, before making the next two points, it is important to remember that this organization was established with the best of intentions. It would be good to believe that it was awesome forethought and a desire for true public introspection by the federal legislature to create an organization such as the CBO; however, without truthfulness in reporting by the legislature, the CBO can only do so much. So with that said, let’s look at the two things that need to be pointed out.

First thing is that the CBO looks at budget, tax, and revenue figures for proposed legislature and makes projections only as far out as the next ten years. This is significant when looking at the proposed federal healthcare bill and the seemingly positive scoring that the CBO has given it. While the projections for the next ten years are positive, many on the CBO have publically estimated that the projections become gravely worse in the second decade of this healthcare bill. We won’t even discuss beyond that.

Second thing to remember is that the CBO scores bills via the vacuum of variables contained within the bill for scoring. A simple (and yes cheesy) example of this would be id a bill were presented with an explanation of funding that would show how the bill should be funded by a leprechaun with a pot of gold behind the rainbow. Yes that is simplistic, and fantasy-laden, but it explains how the CBO Scores within a vacuum. This is how the CBO can score the healthcare bill positively when the same healthcare bill states that much of the funding comes from money saved from Medicare cuts and that those cuts will be spent twice later in the healthcare plan.

Opposing the CBO’s official report in the case of the current healthcare bill, some members of the CBO privately leaked to the press that they believe the healthcare bill will not reduce the deficit as reported, but instead will drive even deeper the hole created for our grandchildren. This private acknowledgement is based on the fact that the healthcare bill provides flawed figures (the variables) used to show how the bill will be funded and not factual evidence.

Basically, when created in 1974, the CBO was a needed agency for use by the federal legislature; however, in today’s world of information manipulation and tragically partisan politics, the CBO’s use is not directed as it was intended and is not utilized to the benefit of America as it should be.

Did anyone see my calculator?
Bill