Congress Steadily Degenerating
Congress Steadily Degenerating
I doubt this will surprise anybody, aside from those who might have hoped that Dems retaking formal control of both houses of Congress, if by narrow margins (with that margin shrinking in the House due to the 2020 election). But I have a more direct source for this conclusion.
I received a visit today from my niece and her family at our house about two hours southwest of Washington. She is Erica Werner, a longtime reporter for the Washington Post who has covered economics issues that Congress deals with. She has been high enough up at WaPo that when some of the major budget issues were being debated and passed, she was the lead author of the top front page story for several days in a row there. She also covered the passage of the ACE at Congress back when that happened. Anyway, she has been reporting on Congress for quite a few years and knows the people there inside out and really up close.
So she was visiting us because she is moving from Washington this coming Thursday, April 15, and was basically saying good-bye as well as having her young daughters see some family stuff we have. She is moving to Pasadena where now widowed dad lives and where she lived when young. Will report for WaPo on various west coast things. A major reason for the move involves family health issues I shall not get into here, but a loudly and publicly stated reason for the move is that she has declared she is “sick of Washington.”
So during this visit, I questioned her more closely on this. One thing that really upset her was the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6. She was fortunately not there when it happened, but apparently several of her colleagues who were there were severely traumatized, something that has not been reported on publicly, although we have heard about some members of Congress and especially their staff that were.
But she admitted one more factor that has been building up. She has become disgusted with Congress itself, that it is getting worse and worse, just steadily degenerating. Her bottom line: every time a member leaves they are replaced by somebody worse, and these new ones have been getting really bad.
So there it is, from somebody who really knows Congress up close. It is degenerating to the point she wants nothing to do with it anymore and is leaving town.
Barkley Rosser
And the imbalance in proportionality between House and Senate is growing. The two are closely related, easily solved with a little bit of intelligent revenue sharing. The problem stopping us are Godotism in the parties.
Right now we have the Californians in charged and they are completely ignorant of the problem you mentioned.
People try to put us d-down (talkin’ ’bout my degeneration)Just because we get around (talkin’ ’bout my degeneration)Things they do look awful c-c-cold (talkin’ ’bout my degeneration)I hope I die before I get old (talkin’ ’bout my degeneration)
This is my degenerationThis is my degeneration, baby…
Matt,
Stick to tomatoes.
The election of a black man sent Republican voters totally out of their minds. They will not recover.
Emichael,
It is important that the not totally out of their minds portion of the party thought they could control the totally out of their minds portion.
I can certainly appreciate her position having been amerced is such a toxic environment. However, I will take the following statement as a bit of emotional release because of such: Her bottom line: every time a member leaves they are replaced by somebody worse, and these new ones have been getting really bad.
Such blanket statements of a group of people like congress just promotes the idea that voting is useless.
Not a good promotion for a democracy.
Arne,
Agreed.
Those ten people should have known better.
“Those ten people should have known better.”
Almost like those 10 people were totally out of their minds?
Arne,no. Those 10 people comprise all of the Rep voters that are “not totally out of their minds portion of the party.”
The problem with the so-called moderates in the GOP isn’t that they thought they could control the whack-jobs.
The problem is that they thought — and still think — that the party is more important than the nation.
They can tut-tut insurrection all they want, but until and unless they resign in disgust from the GOP, they bear full responsibility for what is done in their name.