Part 1 of this series published 13 November presented solutions to education, a national disgrace, and open borders, a national security crisis. On 18 November Rip published Part 2 on election reform. The subject for Part 3 is how to fix our dysfunctional Congress. The scenario is that the presumptive Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is presenting the proposed Republican legislative agenda for the 118th Congress in succeeding days beginning with Part 1 on 3 January, 2023.
Representative McCarthy speaking:
Since 1973 Gallop has published the results of an annual poll which seeks to list, in order, the organizations in which we-the-people have confidence. Thirteen percent have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in Congress while 45% have very little or none. Over the decades, Congress has always been at or very near the bottom.
Also, a Gallop poll in 2020 surveyed Americans on how various professions rated on honesty and ethical standards. Congress came in dead last with a high or very high combined rating of 8% and a low or very low rating of 63%. The American people deserve better, a lot better. Fixing a dysfunctional Congress is a priority for the Republican legislative agenda during the 118th Congress.
Let me describe for you a good example of what a dysfunctional Congress is capable of doing to, not for, but to the American taxpayers. In 2020 when the pandemic was beating up every aspect of our society, the Congress concocted a 5,593-page monstrosity for Covid-19 relief, The Cares Act. The taxpayers were stuck with a bill for $2.2 trillion. Certainly, the relief was welcomed by a large segment of the population, but here is the pathetic part; under the guise of helping Americans through the pandemic, members of Congress took the opportunity to pork-up the bill with dozens, if not hundreds, of earmarked funding directives that have absolutely nothing to do with Covid or Covid relief. Here is a sampling:
$10 million for “gender programs” in Pakistan’
$300 million for fisheries,
$100 million for NASA,
$300 million to Endowment for the Arts,
$300 million to Endowment for the Humanities,
$300 million to Public Broadcasting,
$500 million for Museums and Libraries,
$720 million to Social Security Administration,
$315 million to the State Department,
$90 million to the Peace Corp,
$492 million to National Railroad Passenger Corp,
$526 million grant to Amtrak.
$4.7 billion in foreign aid to nine countries.
This is just a sampling of the pork earmarked in the must-pass Covid-19 relief law. Are these examples Covid-19 related? Should we be borrowing money for these types of expenditures? If viewed separately by the American taxpayers, would they pass the smell test? Absolutely not.
For years politicians have been emphasizing the need for infrastructure spending. So, in 2021 Congress passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill which, by the way, also provides funding for universal pre-K, child care, enhanced child tax credit, earned income tax credit, Affordable Care Act subsidies, Medicaid expansion, medical hearing benefits, affordable housing, Pell grants, children’s nutrition, immigration, state and local tax deductions, etc. etc. Only about 25% of the expenditures actually exist for real infrastructure such as roads, bridges and airports.
Why has Congress become so continuously inept? Simply stated, they do not have a set of established standards and any organization without standards is a failed operation. Establish and enforce a set of simple standards and a lot of things in Washington can get fixed, quickly.
However, keep in mind that change is a frightening concept to most organizations. Fixing Congress will take some courage and strong, sensible, insightful leadership.
In accordance with this plan a small agency will be formed under the Office of Inspector General (free from Congressional influence) inside the General Services Administration (an independent government organization). It will be called the U.S. Congressional Legislation Standards Authority (CLSA). Their sole purpose will be to enforce these standards and to administer the life-cycle of legislation in the House and Senate.
Every bill will first appear on a Congressional web site (operated solely by the CLSA) that is totally dedicated to enforcing the standards for every bill. Every member of Congress will receive an alert each time a new bill is proposed and posted. This web site will be managed solely by the CLSA; The sponsors of a piece of legislation will provide all of the information for the administration of a bill to the CLSA and may contact the CLSA at any time to update schedules, to notify members of committee hearings, to make changes to the legislation, etc. But the CLSA are the only ones who can access the site to add, delete or change any piece of information.
The CLSA does not have the authority to recommend changes, additions or deletions to the intent of the legislation. Their function is to determine if the proposed legislation meets the following standards, with particular emphasis on Standard Number Three, Applicability.
STANDARD NUMBER ONE, Outlaw “Earmarking”: An earmark is a provision inserted into a discretionary spending bill that directs funds to a specific recipient while circumventing the merit-base or competitive-funds allocation process. Most earmarks are attached to a “must-pass” bill so that it is protected from non-passage or Presidential veto. Generally, think of an earmark as an idea that would not have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting passed if, standing alone, it was exposed to the public before passage.
STANDARD NUMBER TWO, Sunset Legislation: This is a measure within a statute, regulation or other law that provides that the law shall cease to have effect after a specific date, unless further legislative action is taken to extend the law. Most laws do not have sunset clauses and therefore remain in force indefinitely. Keep in mind that many laws cause some Executive Branch organization to be stood up. Our government is full of agencies, divisions and branches that require annual funding, while having outlived their original requirement to exit.
STANDARD NUMBER THREE, Applicability: In the recent 5593-page Covid-19 relief bill there were scores of organizations funded from this bill that had absolutely zero association with the Covid-19 outbreak or relief thereof.
Hereafter all of the provisions of a particular bill must clearly identify with the subject, purpose and intent of the bill. It will save many tens of billions of needless expenditures per year. It will prevent publishing bills that are too lengthy to read; e.g., not a single Representative or Senator actually read the 5593-page Covid-19 relief bill before they voted on it.
STANDARD NUMBER FOUR, Stand-Alone: Every bill will be a single-issue piece of legislation.
STANDARD NUMBER FIVE, Time Limits: There are two different situations to consider. One is the federal budget process and the other is all bills other than those in the budget process.
First, the non-budget process bills will get processed in one continuous 90-day timeframe. The CLSA will enforce the scheduling of all activities to ensure the bill is ready to be voted on before the 90-day timeframe expires. The exception to this is, at any time the bill’s sponsor may pull it from consideration.
STANDARD NUMBER SIX, Leaders cannot hide a pending Bill: The Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader in the Senate too often practice sitting on bills, not allowing them to be voted on for protracted periods of time. This will not be allowed. Every bill will be voted on during the 90-day window.
STANDARD NUMBER SEVEN, Standard Website Format in four sections:
Section one will contain administration information and be continuously updates throughout the 90-day window. Section one will contain the following:
-Title of the legislation
-A statement that all data is current as of (include a date).
-Date which starts the 90-day calendar.
-Not-later-than date for floor vote on the bill.
-The member of Congress who is the principal sponsor plus all co-sponsors.
-Author of the proposed bill (a member of Congress, a Congressional committee staff, Executive Branch Department, Non-governmental organization, lobbyist, private citizen, etc.).
-Sunset legislation date.
-Schedule of committee hearings.
-When determined, the actual date to be debated and voted on the floor of the House of Representatives.
-When determined, the actual date to be debated and voted on the Senate floor.
Section two is a statement of legislative intent:
The narrative for section two will be limited to one single page, font 12 and must begin with the words, the purpose of this legislation is to…….
Intent is one of the least used and most important aspects of any law. Congress and the authors of a bill should not leave it to the applicable governmental departments, who will be charged with administrating the law, to infuse their own intent for what the laws should or should not be about.
Section three presents the major components of the bill:
This section of the Standard Format will provide an outline of the major elements. It is similar to a Table of Contents but with a single sentence explaining each entry.
Section four will include the bill’s entire narrative. For the first time the American people can go on-line and read the proposed legislation and contact their congressional representatives with comments and questions before it is voted on.
Let me shift now to the federal budget process legislation which consists of twelve separate appropriation bills,
Each October, federal agencies begin compiling their budgets for the following fiscal year and submit their proposals to the President via the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). OMB edits, calculates, and coordinates the budget for final review and approval by the President. The President then forwards the approved proposal to the House and Senate by the first Monday in February.
Upon receipt various Committees begin reviewing their respective sections of the budget; the process is spear-headed by the Budget Committee.
The Budget Resolution document is then considered on the House Floor and goes through a similar process in the Senate and is to be completed not later than April 15th. The CLSA will closely monitor the resolution process looking for violations of the standards on earmarking and applicability.
The timing of the entire budget review is critical, and this is where Congressional ineptitude begins to impact the Budget Resolution process because they too often choose to disregard protocols and standards. For example, in six of the seven most recent fiscal years, Congress never adopted a formal budget resolution at all. This indiscipline represents the beginning of the downfall of the entire annual budget process.
Between the April 15th Budget Resolution and May 15th, the differences are to be reconciled between the House and Senate into the compromise resolution for all 12 separate appropriations bills. May 15TH then begins the 90-day CLSA Standard window for passage of the 12 budget appropriations.
One of the most basic tasks of Congress is to pass a fiscal year budget and do it on time. However, Congressional ineptitude continues to place the day-to-day functioning of the federal government in jeopardy and thereby negatively affecting millions of Americans.
Failure to pass the appropriation bills on time results in either passing continuing resolutions (CRs) or shutting down the government. Congress has used CRs in 40 of the last 44 fiscal years. In FY 2013 a full-year CR covered 7 of the 12 appropriations. It has been 23 years since all of the appropriations bills were passed prior to the beginning of the fiscal year. In the past 43 years there has been an average of 4.6 CRs per fiscal year. Additionally, it is important to note that Continuing Resolutions have many negative and expensive unintended consequences. For example, programs that were scheduled to end will be needlessly extended and important new programs will not be initiated. This is what one would call unacceptable institutionalized ineptitude.
What I have just presented to you serves to illustrate the level of disfunction in today’s Congress, abrogation of constitutional responsibilities, the absence of concern over continued deficit spending and rising national debt and its inability to clean its own dirty laundry. The Speaker of the House and Majority Leader of the Senate hold the keys to success or failure of the federal budget legislation. Failure to keep the budget process on a successful timeline leading to a completed budget prior to the beginning of the fiscal year is a failure of leadership. Leadership failure should have visible consequences, one of which would be for the House and/or Senate members to pass a resolution seeking the resignations of their respective leader.
Conclusions:
After the fact, that’s when we found out about the $10 million for gender programs in Pakistan and dozens more ridiculous “Covid-19 relief” packages. Did the general public know about them before they became law? No, because Congress can waste our tax dollars almost at will while hiding behind a wall of anonymity in legislation that is thousands of pages in length. Without standards there is no accountability.
Under the Congressional Legislation Standards Authority (CLSA), we would have known on day-one who sponsored the insane $10 million for gender programs in Pakistan earmark. We-the-people would have known when a committee was going to discuss it. We would have known weeks in advance when it was going to be voted on. We would have known all this because it would have been a stand-alone bill, not hidden inside a 5593-page unread bill. Accountability and transparency would have been front and center. The fact is, that bill would never have made it to the floor for a vote because visibility to the press and to we-the-people would have caused it to go away.
Furthermore, one of the great advantages of a standards-based legislative process is that in all likelihood, the bill would never have been written because anonymity would be non-existent.
Journalists will use the CLSA website as a source for up-to-the-minute reporting on pending legislation. Citizens can read it, learn what the legislation is all about, understand the positives and negatives of the intent and weigh in with their elected legislators before, not after, it becomes the law of the land.
After about a year, this simple CLSA process will guide all activities in the Congress and will be accepted as the new normal. This will save untold tens or hundreds of billions of dollars per year. It will have the effect of spending our tax dollars first in support of we-the-people vs attempting to buy our way into changing overseas cultures.
Successful, admired organizations operate this way every day. It is as simple as one-two-three. One, thoroughly define the TASK at hand. Two, define the CONDITIONS, in this case stand-alone bills vs appropriations bills. Three, set and enforce the operating STANDARDS without exceptions.
By the way, in the time it has taken me to present these remarks, about twenty minutes, the national debt has increased by about $84 million. Bringing order and discipline to the Congress is the beginning of a process of reducing reckless unnecessary spending and move the Congress towards a balanced budget mentality.
Are there any questions?
I will see you here tomorrow to present another proposed Republican legislative initiative for the 118th Congress.
Author’s note: The entire, detailed concept or operations for Congressional reform is contained in, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA, Chapter 5.
The next proposed Speaker presentation to America outlining the legislative agenda for the 118th Congress will soon appear entitled, WHAT’S NEXT REPUBLICANS? (Part 4). Let’s not forget that polls have been telling us that 75-80% of Americans believe Biden has this country on the wrong track. Add to that the fact that after the midterm elections Biden announced that he would “change nothing.” This is perhaps the greatest opportunity a party has had in recent decades to stand for solutions to America’s numerous and significant nation-wide problems. Therefore, again I ask, if any of you agree with what I have proposed in PART 3, and if you have contact with any movers-and-shakers in Washington, please provide them a copy. Thank you. Marv
Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.