Posted by As we approach yet another election, there is only one question we need to ask and answer: Who are these candidates running for office? Before I offer my thoughts, take a moment to read and reflect on the following observation.
| The world about which each man is supposed to have opinions has become so complicated as to defy his powers of understanding. What he knows of events that matter enormously to him, the purposes of governments, the aspirations of peoples, the struggle of classes, he knows at second, third, or fourth hand. He cannot go and see for himself. Even the things that are near to him have become too involved for his judgment. I know of no man, even among those who devote all of their time to watching public affairs, who can even pretend to keep track, at the same time, of his city government, his state government, Congress, the departments, the industrial situation, and the rest of the world. What men who make the study of politics a vocation cannot do, the man who has an hour a day for newspapers and talk cannot possibly hope to do. He must seize catchwords and headlines or nothing. |
Clearly we have opinions about our available candidates for any office. But how did we form these opinions? Are these opinions based on campaign literature we received via email or snail mail (i.e. USPS)? Did we view some ads on TV or on the internet. Did we read about the candidates in newspaper articles or in magazine essays? As noted in the observation above we know them “at second, third or fourth hand.” And over what time period did we form these opinions? Months? A few weeks? A few days? A couple of hours before we registered our votes?
I claim that just voting for a Congressional candidate defies our “powers of understanding”. Besides knowing the character of the candidate (which we never do), what are the job requirements of the office they are trying to fill? For instance, what are the primary duties of a member of the House of Representatives?
A quick review of Article I of the Constitution provides a shopping list of duties and responsibilities House Representatives and Senators are required to address. But two critical duties of a member of the House are (1) to raise revenue and (2) to appropriate funds for spending. Do we really understand what that means? Does the candidate really know what that means? I doubt it. Our “national household” is currently over $40trillion in debt. All of this is in the hands of the House which brags about controlling the “power of the purse”.
The appropriations process sets the annual spending for programs. The House Appropriations Committee does this through 12 spending bills. These bills are prepared by the twelve subcommittees of the Appropriations Committee. Of course, these bills are never ready for the start of the fiscal year so the Continuing Resolution is always needed to avoid a government shutdown. What role does your representative play in this process?
If a Congressman is a member of the Appropriations Committee, they represent “fiscal management”. They allocate funds for authorized programs and projects. The authorization is done by other Congressional committees. ( To get an understanding of the authorization/appropriation process see The Appropriations Committee: Authority, Process, and Impact and Authorizations and the Appropriations Process ). The obvious question is what skill and knowledge requirements are needed to do this job? For instance, what are the specific requirements for someone assigned to the Agriculture Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. Since there is no job description, let’s look at the appropriations bill for specific areas of expertise.
The bill is divided into seven sections:
| Title I Agricultural Programs |
| Title II Farm Production and Conservation Programs |
| Title III Rural Development Programs |
| Title IV Domestic Food Programs |
| Title V Foreign Assistance and Related Programs |
| Title VI Related Agencies and Food and Drug Administration |
| Title VII General Provisions |
Clearly there are a wide range of technical issues associated with these seven funding areas. How does a committee member justify funding for these programs? What does he actually know about the these programs?
Since I’m rapidly approaching my self-imposed word limit, I’ll offer a couple of links for details from the authorization documentation from the House Agriculture Committee (The Farm Bill) and from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA Fiscal Year 2027 Justification of Estimates for Appropriations Committees). I encourage you to examine these documents for details needed for the appropriation of funds. I will continue my research and post more information in the future. In my view, this is truly a Citizen’s Dilemma of WTMI [Way Too Much Information].
For those who are wondering who made the opening observation in the box above, it was Walter Lippman. It appeared in Liberty and the News, published by Harcourt, Brace, and Howe 1920. The quote is taken from the essay What Modern Liberty Means, pp. 37 – 38, originally appearing in the Atlantic Monthly in 1919. Since Lippmann did not have the internet he couldn’t evaluate the access citizens would have to first hand documentation. But it is clear that the volume of material is greater than the amount conjectured in his statement: I know of no man, even among those who devote all of their time to watching public affairs, who can even pretend to keep track, at the same time, of his city government, his state government, Congress, the departments, the industrial situation, and the rest of the world.
The only approach is to blindly accept the propaganda in print and in the other media. As Lipmann says, He must seize catchwords and headlines or nothing.
Until next time, as always, in the words of Edward R. Murrow, “Good night and good luck”.
