Saturday, January 19, 2008
Outsourcing Congress
By
Molly the Robin
By
Molly the Robin
My name is Molly and I am a robin. I learned to think by seeing myself in car door mirrors. I am a mother who has had several broods of hatchlings. A fellow wrote about my story in Animal Park. At first I did not think at all, but seeing myself in mirrors sparked my brain and ever sinceI have been reading everything about this wonderful country in local school libraries that are often closed. I just read parts of The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce and he says politics is "a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles-the conduct of public affairs for private advantage". So I got to thinking.
The newspapers are full of stories about outsourcing. There has been considerable discussion of outsourcing of American jobs to low cost countries such as India, China, Singapore and countries in the Caribbean Basin. On and on the controversy goes. The loss of jobs is hemorrhaging the U.S. job market according to some observers and many local economies are wrecked with the reduction of substantial employment.
The source of considerable national debt is the spending habits of the United States Congress. They usually spend significantly more money than your country obtains in taxes, necessitating borrowing. The national debt is now over eight trillion dollars and climbing fast, very fast. With outsourcing of jobs the country’s debt as well as its trade deficit will dramatically increase. New solutions are desperately needed. A quick fix is in order if ever there was a need of one.
There is a solution to your problems, outsource both Houses of Congress. No academic from any institution no matter how poorly endowed can easily refute or gainsay the merit of outsourcing the entire Congress, except those who lobby the Congress for money. Companies in Japan or India or elsewhere could easily do the work of Congress for considerably less expense and fanfare than we presently endure. Competitive bidding will be utilized. The benefits are enormous. In the outsourcing contract the American people can insert the illegality and forfeiture of contract for any pork barrel spending programs. Members of Congress are notorious for, “Help my district and I’ll help yours” concept. A contract clause preventing pork barrel waste and abuse spending will save American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars annually. Cost overruns will be a thing of the past in outsourcing the Congress, for there will be a clause eliminating cost overruns, saving additional billions of dollars. The American people will not only have a vastly less expensive government, but their taxes will be reduced. The new government department would be named Legislative Outsourcing.
Membership in Congress would be a part-time job, only meeting a few months a year and periodically award the Legislative Outsourcing contract. Congress would become a permanent part-time position with no perks and privileges, at least not more perks and privileges than the average American. Members of Congress would evaluate the contractor and government programs with benchmarks, something they do not do now.
The outsourcing contract will clearly specify that the Constitution and Bill of Rights will be strictly adhered to without undue fudging and misinterpretation-providing for forfeiture of contract.
The outsourcing contract will have quality controls, something that no longer exists in the Congress today. Also, the inability of the contractor to spend any more money than allocated will keep costs low. In other words, it would be a fixed amount contract, something unknown in bloated Congressional budgets. All government programs would be monitored continuously for effective and efficiency in order to provide the most benefit to the American people, not lobbyists of any kind. The outsourcing contractor might even be able to provide universal health care by eliminating all the waste, fraud and mismanagement in U.S. government. Your Founding Fathers had always intended the national government to be small and unobtrusive and never dominating the life of the country by squeezing it dry of its wealth through taxation and laws directing where the resources of the country will be targeted. The outsourcing contractor will provide continuously monitoring of government programs by feedback from the American people, the end users, in order to make programs useful and beneficial in cost-effective ways.
Starting outsourcing at the national level with the Congress is a great new beginning for the 21st Century by adhering to the Constitution and preventing the U.S. government from acts of war without declaring war by sidestepping the Constitution, for example, the Vietnam and Iraq wars.
Outsourcing is the answer to an overstuffed, overfed, puffed up and expensive problem called the Congress of the United States. The weightier and heavier Congress becomes a greater the burden for the American people. The diet for our Congress is outsourcing and the health of the American people almost demands it. The immense and intractable deficiencies of the two party system will be eliminated. Lobbying will be permanently eliminated saving hundreds of billions of dollars. The concept that the Congressional representative has only one client-each citizen in his district-not lobbyists-will be a reality, unlike the favored patronage system of influential industries, companies, organizations and institutions.
Everything will be in the outsourcing contract, something we did not have now in government. Outsourcing for Congress is an idea whose time has come. Outsourcing can be a win-win for the country and the American people. Since I looked at myself in that car door mirror things have become clearer and clearer.
