Going For The Record

Apparently, Congress has tied its lowest approval rating ever. It's pretty bad when no one thinks you're doing a good job. Perhaps the problem comes from the fact that everyone on the Hill seems to be occupied with name calling and finger pointing and campaigning and not on doing, God forbid, what they were hired to do by the American people.

There are certain policies that are always going to be unpopular with roughly 50% of Americans: the war, international policy, legalized murder of the unborn, etc. But there are plenty of things that should be simple enough to deal with. It is pretty evident that the vast majority of Americans want something done about border security. This should be a slam dunk, right? Oddly enough, no.

No, instead, our Congress spends its time making sure that there is racial parity in NASCAR racing and investigating whether there is steroid use in baseball.

There seems to be a fairly universal call by Americans to do something about rising gas prices. How has Congress addressed this situation? Um, I'm trying to remember. Oh yes, they've done nothing. Wait! There is that bill that has been proposed to increase the minimum mileage ratings of personal vehicles. How would this help? All it will do is give auto manufacturers an excuse to charge for the changes that market pressure would force them to make without Congressional intervention. (Remember the basic economics class you had back in 9th grade? Supply and demand?)

It reminds me of the new regulations for commercial diesel vehicles that recently went into effect. In an effort to become more "green" Congress mandated that new emissions guidelines go into effect for these vehicles. What is the effect of these changes? They have cut fuel efficiency in HALF. Incidentally, I am amused by the Detroit types that swear that they can't build fuel efficient vehicles because Americans don't want them. Let someone build a fuel-efficient SUV with plenty of space and sufficient power and see if they don't become quite wealthy.

I don't suppose that I can completely blame Congress (although I probably will anyway.) In my old fraternity, we would spend entire business meetings discussing items that would end up passing unanimously in the end. Even though every person would basically say the same thing, during our discussions everyone had to have their say. There must be some demon of stupidity that strikes every business meeting on the planet.

It seems to me that we should be able to significantly reduce taxes by making the government stop doing stuff that they have no business doing. I think that the vast majority of tax money should go to the local government where the taxes are collected, the second largest batch should go to the state government, and the least should end up at the Federal level. I really think that Congress is merely trying to justify their existence up there sometimes.

Of course, the other side of this equation lies in the corruption within the upper echelons of American business and American government. I pray often for the corruption to be revealed and purged. How I long for a generation of law makers and businessmen who are more concerned about what is best for this country instead of what is best for their own bottom lines. I wonder sometimes if it is too late. We need Divine intervention and soon.