I don't know how people here feel, but, I am beyond disgusted with Congress. Both parties. Almost everyone in the Congress, including my representative and most of yours.

I would not be at all sad to see 90% of incumbents - of BOTH parties - voted out of office. What we have in Washington right now is simply not functional. They can't get anything done.
Is anyone else as upset as I am about the Congress or am? Can anyone remember it ever being more useless than it is right now?

Billions of dollars passed through Congress' empty chambers

By Stephen Dinan
December 23, 2011, 02:28PM

Given the billions of dollars in new spending and tax cuts Congress approved Friday morning, it is surprising just how few lawmakers had a hand in the final denouement.

All told, with such momentous issues at stake, only a dozen lawmakers were present for the action, which happened in an amazing 2½ minutes of total floor time.

The Senate went first, gaveling into session at 9:30 with just Majority Leader Harry Reid on the floor and Sen. Mark Warner presiding.

Mr. Reid read out a preapproved agreement that automatically gave Senate approval to a two-month payroll tax cut once the bill made it over from the House later in the morning. Mr. Warner then gaveled closed the session just 70 seconds after he opened it.

Across the Capitol a half-hour later the House acted. In the space of 90 seconds Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, a Missouri Republican, asked that a bill be introduced, it be excused from going through the regular committee process, the required reading of the legislation be waived and the measure be considered to have passed. House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, a Democrat who came to see the proceedings, took a moment to praise the agreement, and then House Speaker John A. Boehner announced the deal's passage. Total time was 90 seconds.

Those three House members were joined by another Republican and six other Democrats who were mere spectators to the proceedings.

In both chambers, the bill was passed through unanimous consent — a tool frequently used in the Senate, but which is more rare in the House, and is usually used for housekeeping such as revising statements — not to pass major legislation.

If a single member of either chamber had objected, the deal would have been scuttled. But some members didn't even get that chance — given the time difference between the final agreement Thursday and Friday morning's action, it's unlikely West Coast lawmakers could have made it even if they'd wanted to object.

Tim Huelskamp, a Kansas Republican, told CNN he had considered objecting but said the timing of the deal left him no time to make it back to Washington.

"By the time we were notified that the unanimous consent agreement would be offered, where I come from in Kansas, I can't get to Washington quick enough on this short notice," he told the network on Friday.

He said the GOP's leaders broke their own pledge to give all members three days to read legislation before putting bills on the floor for action.

The bill passed and signed into law Friday didn't even exist until 10:30 Friday morning when it was officially introduced — half an hour after the Senate had deemed it to have passed.

In order to head off potential mischief in that time gap, Mr. Reid wrote into the Senate's agreement that the language must exactly match that of the bill the Senate passed last weekend, or else the prearranged consent of senators would be withdrawn and the bill would not have passed the upper chamber.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/ins ... empty-cha/

What do you think the problem is? The way I see it, they are representing us in just the way we demand. "You better not touch my Social Security payments, which I deserve! There better not be any cuts in the defense budget! We need more funding for education! Raise taxes by a penny, and you're done for pal!" And all the while we're about to walk off a cliff. The truth might be that Americans are weak, stupid, and lazy....and selfish! and our Congress reflects that. But the effect is cumulative. We're suffering for the follies of previous generations. Yet I see no leader on the horizon strong enough to right the ship. Even the most conservative heroes of our age pay mere lip service to the shoddy state we've come to in our Republic.

I think there are only two courses of action:
Go along as we are until the collapse and then try to rebuild.... Or
Look back in our history and find the instances where we went off the track. Try to undo those mistakes. The question is, how do you undo 1913, the New Deal, the Great Society and others?

I think I've managed to boil the political career of the average politician of either party into a simple seven-step program. You, too, can be a lifelong politician if you follow these simple seven steps:

1) Choose a political party.
2) Wait for the local incumbent to: a) die; b) retire; c) go to jail
3) Out-manuever the other folks in your party for the open seat. Win and get sworn in.
4) Help members of your party to: a) raise money; b) win their own elections; c) bash the other party.
5) Off-election year: Pile up a few minor accomplishments (sponsor legislation, give speeches and TV interviews, investigate Baseball). Occasionally work with the other party to tackle a pet issue of little consequence. Mostly spend time mixing it up in political fights and games to score points for the next year.
6) On-election year: Don't rock the boat. Don't do anything that can be used against you - even if it means you don't do anything that could help the country. Cash in on the favors you've done by raising money within your party and helping your peers win their elections. Use whatever party influence you've developed to keep challengers from within your party at bay while working to gain advantage over the opposing party.
7) Repeat steps 4-7 until you: a) die, b) retire, or c) go to jail.

(After you've completed steps 1-7, assuming your run didn't end with you dying or going to jail, congratulations!! Now you get to earn a lifelong pension and either become a lobbyist or a TV personality. Thanks for your service!)

Mind if I borrow this? FB friends would get a kick out of it while agreeing with every word.

TVV, I think you make some valid criticisms of our current 2 party system but I think it still comes down to the voters. In places where one party dominates most people of that party just roll over and accept what the power brokers deliver. On a local level, that's not inevitable. People need to get involved in party politics on the local level in order to facilitate change. Look at what happened in KS when conservatives got involved in the Republican party at the local level. Over a period of time they were able to root out the RINO elements and now they have one of the strongest pro-life state parties in the nation. They have a dedicated, pro-life governor and are slowly bringing the radical abortionists in KS to justice. They certainly have a long way to go but they've made remarkable progress all because people made the decision to step up and get involved.

None of that required the effort to create a third party or an independent campaign. They worked within the system. The root cause of our Congress problem stems in the hearts of the American people.

Btw, I can think of other Congresses in our history that were just as bad or worse then this one. How many times before the Civil war did Congress refuse to act on slavery. They failed to appropriately deal with the most pressing issue facing the nation at the time. We all know how that ended up. The current Congress is by no means alone in its failures.