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We keep hearing about ways to cut the budget but really, do we need to fund 535 political offices to run the voting part of the Federal Government? This system was set up before the telegraph and when mail was delivered with the Pony Express.
In this day and age I would think we could cut both in half and not only save a lot of money but streamline the process.
We keep hearing about ways to cut the budget but really, do we need to fund 535 political offices to run the voting part of the Federal Government? This system was set up before the telegraph and when mail was delivered with the Pony Express.
In this day and age I would think we could cut both in half and not only save a lot of money but streamline the process.
We need 535 just to find 20 or so that will work, the rest just run for office, run for office, run for office ......
We keep hearing about ways to cut the budget but really, do we need to fund 535 political offices to run the voting part of the Federal Government? This system was set up before the telegraph and when mail was delivered with the Pony Express.
In this day and age I would think we could cut both in half and not only save a lot of money but streamline the process.
Actually, we need at least a thousand more members of the House. Not enough representation for the size of this country today. Districts are too big and not all factions are sufficiently represented.
The Founders wanted House members to be closely bound to their constituencies. Bowing to George Washington’s objection that 40,000 constituents per member was insufficiently representative, the original 65 members represented 30,000 citizens each. It is easy to imagine Washington’s horror if he had known the average district in 2008 would contain close to 700,000 people. No wonder citizens agree in most polls that “no one is listening to me and my family”; they likely have never met their member of Congress. To change how politics is played, we must rewrite some basic rules–and more than double the size of the House of Representatives.
A larger, more representative House is not without precedent. European democracies almost across the board have more legislative members and better representation ratios. The average British MP in the 646-member House of Commons represents 91,000 people, and France’s 577-member assembly boasts a 1-to-102,000 legislator-to-constituent ratio.
Reverting to Washington’s 30,000 constituent standard would be impractical; it would mean a 10,000-member House.
We keep hearing about ways to cut the budget but really, do we need to fund 535 political offices to run the voting part of the Federal Government? This system was set up before the telegraph and when mail was delivered with the Pony Express.
In this day and age I would think we could cut both in half and not only save a lot of money but streamline the process.
As long as you believe in the constitution we need them
We keep hearing about ways to cut the budget but really, do we need to fund 535 political offices to run the voting part of the Federal Government? This system was set up before the telegraph and when mail was delivered with the Pony Express.
In this day and age I would think we could cut both in half and not only save a lot of money but streamline the process.
1. If your goal is to streamline the process, then you should be a proponent of an emperor. Real streamlined.
2. The Congressional staff budget is not even a freckle on the butt of the elephant that is our budget.
Provided that Americans generally don't want to give up or dilute their representation in Congress, and that slashing Congress' staff won't do anything meaningful to cure our budget woes, I don't see any utility in fundamentally altering the democratic representation in our republic.
One of the reasons Washington is dysfunctional is that the Congressional offices are understaffed, and those staffs, with the exception of 3-4 people in the office (CoS/Deputy CoS, LD & district/state director), are paid at a level that isn't attractive to most qualified candidates, or even a livable wage in Washington DC.
Lets take your Representative for example. They has 600k-900k constituents to represent and to do that they only have 15-16 staff. With that small staff they have to run their DC office, run their district office, respond to constituent mail, respond to constituent calls, meet with organizations and constituents, organize tours of Congress and the Capitol, prepare speeches, engage the press, review legislation, write legislation, prepare for and attend hearings, work on constituent cases (SS/medicare/immigration issues), conduct visits in the district, manage the schedule of the Congressman etc etc etc.
If you have a healthcare policy issue, that you need your Congressman to engage on and help with, you are not going to be meeting with a staffer that is a seasoned health-policy expert that works in depth on healthcare all day long. You're going to be meeting with a recent college grad, earning $37,000 (15k of which is going to a DC apartment with 4 roommates) who is handing all healthcare, veterans, science and agriculture issues for the Congressman.
People look at the aggregate numbers, without any meaningful perspective, and say 'ehrmehgerhd, so mech moneh', but the reality is your Member of Congress is working with a skeleton crew of mostly 20-somethings.
If you want to cut that more, you might as well just hand the keys over to lobbyists: they are thriving because they are the back-office of Congress, with the resources to actually do the work that your Congressman can't.
We keep hearing about ways to cut the budget but really, do we need to fund 535 political offices to run the voting part of the Federal Government? This system was set up before the telegraph and when mail was delivered with the Pony Express.
In this day and age I would think we could cut both in half and not only save a lot of money but streamline the process.
Put congress on Obama care instead of their Cadillac plan
Do we still need 100 Senators and 435 Congressmen and all their staffs?
Seeing how unions, corporations, PACs, lobbyists, think-tanks and special interest groups write all of the legislation, there's really no point in have staff members.
I would permit congresspersons to have either a secretary or administrative assistant. Aside from that, what's wrong with internships?
I interned at OSHA to get my BA in Political Science. I don't see why people can't voluntarily intern for free to work on the staff of a Representative or Senator, and that goes for State legislatures as well.
Unnecessarily...
Actually, we need at least a thousand more members of the House. Not enough representation for the size of this country today. Districts are too big and not all factions are sufficiently represented.
Nonsense. When you consider what the Federal govt is authorized to do, 535 is plenty.
The problem is not that Congress is too small. The problem is that Congress is trying to do far too much, most of which they were never intended to do.
Cut their duties back to just what is authorized by the Constitution, and 535 will do just fine.
There are millions of Americans without effective representation; one could argue we need a larger House.
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