12-21-2017, 08:58 AM
The idea of a representative government is that we, the people, send statesmen to the government to do the job of governing. They know the plights of the people, they understand government, and so they can do the job. Some may even be experts in a particular field and so they sit on committees that handle that and offer up their knowledge to help in crafting policy. For more specific details, they have an army of bureaucrats in the government that can offer up their expertise on certain things in their departments and they have staffers on the Hill to help them with the same things.
What has happened is that we no longer elect statesmen. The politicians we do elect go to Washington and instead of surrounding themselves with staffers and working with bureaucrats that really understand these policies and how they work, they have pushed their staffers to their local offices to do constituent relations (so they don't have to themselves) and they have spurned the bureaucrats since government is now bad since the Nixon era. Instead, they rely more on the party structure to guide them as well as the lobbyists that fill the coffers of both the party and them. But let's be clear, the power of lobbyists is not in the money, it is really in the access. Well over half of the lobbyists in Washington once graced those halls as employees of the government. They know the players, they know the ins and outs, and they know what these people need to hear to make things happen.
All of that being said, just because legislation polls poorly doesn't mean it shouldn't be put in place. The general public is generally ignorant of what needs to happen in government. I personally see this tax bill as bad policy, but how many people that answer they don't like the bill can articulate with any sort of clarity the reason why? I have been reading information on this bill and the poll numbers, and the percentage of lower to middle class people that that think their taxes will go up is something like three times the actual percentage.
The people don't always know what they want, and they certainly don't always know what they need, which is why we have a representative government and not a direct democracy. Again, I am not defending the tax bill with this, but rather just saying why legislation that may be unpopular with the public will be passed. If you don't like what the lawmakers do, then change who represents you; that is what makes it a representative government.
What has happened is that we no longer elect statesmen. The politicians we do elect go to Washington and instead of surrounding themselves with staffers and working with bureaucrats that really understand these policies and how they work, they have pushed their staffers to their local offices to do constituent relations (so they don't have to themselves) and they have spurned the bureaucrats since government is now bad since the Nixon era. Instead, they rely more on the party structure to guide them as well as the lobbyists that fill the coffers of both the party and them. But let's be clear, the power of lobbyists is not in the money, it is really in the access. Well over half of the lobbyists in Washington once graced those halls as employees of the government. They know the players, they know the ins and outs, and they know what these people need to hear to make things happen.
All of that being said, just because legislation polls poorly doesn't mean it shouldn't be put in place. The general public is generally ignorant of what needs to happen in government. I personally see this tax bill as bad policy, but how many people that answer they don't like the bill can articulate with any sort of clarity the reason why? I have been reading information on this bill and the poll numbers, and the percentage of lower to middle class people that that think their taxes will go up is something like three times the actual percentage.
The people don't always know what they want, and they certainly don't always know what they need, which is why we have a representative government and not a direct democracy. Again, I am not defending the tax bill with this, but rather just saying why legislation that may be unpopular with the public will be passed. If you don't like what the lawmakers do, then change who represents you; that is what makes it a representative government.
