Upholding the Republic: Asking Congress to Do Its Job

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

           The quote cited above is the oath of office sworn by all Congress members when they join or renew their membership in the Congress of the United States by popular election of their constituents. This oath is an interesting historical and philosophical statement on the nature of the Republic that these men and women represent, but that evaluation is best left for another time. Instead, the focus in this post is on one aspect of the oath: the job of a member of Congress.

          Clearly, Congress’ main purpose, as outlined in Article I of the Constitution and reaffirmed in the oath, is to engage in legislative acts that are for the good order and function of the nation. Particularly, the Congress is to pass laws regarding the government’s financing and the nation’s defense.

          In previous versions of the laws passed by Congress, they agreed to pass a new budget by 30 September of each year. Additionally, they agreed to review a specific set of laws, know collectively as the Patriot Act, this year. As it turns out, this Congress, the 109^th in our nation’s history, has failed to do either thing so far this year.

          Whatever one might think about partisanship and such, it is clearly counterproductive to the execution of such an oath and legal responsibility for anyone to refuse to discuss these matters in the necessarily open forum that is a legislature, as much as it is equally counterproductive for anyone to try to ramrod through legislation attached to a bill to which it has no affinity. In either case, it appears that the members of Congress, especially the one hundred privileged members of the United States Senate, are not discharging the duties required by law and the oath that they swore as members of Congress.

          Perhaps even more distressing is the fact that these members of Congress continue to be paid no less than $162,100 per year, whether they fulfill their legal and sworn duties or not. This calculates to $86,723,500 per year in basic salary, not to include the far more massive and difficult to establish expenditures on benefits, privileges, and the staffs necessary to keep a legislature running whether it is doing anything or not.

          Meanwhile, the entire federal government, including all of its various agencies and programs, are funded under a ‘continuing resolution’ that basically says, ‘Keep spending money like you did last year until we get around to telling you how to do it this year.’. Further, the US law enforcement and intelligence agencies that rely on the definitions of the law to pursue their defense of our nation will likely be left without that definition until February.

          Therefore, for the next thirty to sixty days, we will be a nation whose defense is essentially unfunded and undefined, and all because Congress did not do its legally mandated and sworn job. All of these facts should force most Americans to ask the basic question ‘What do we keep electing these people for?’, but unfortunately, such questions do not cross the minds of enough Americans to accomplish something truly effective. So, in the meantime, the members of Congress continue to not do the job we pay them to do and continue to get paid for it.

          The answer to such a quandary is lengthy and complex- that is, best left for another time-, but it is enough for now to identify that it exists. Perhaps, by the time Congress gets back to work in January, there will be enough Americans who have noticed and cared that Congress has not done its job to force them to do so or replace them with members who can. One can always hope…

 

DLH