No Confidence

Ineptitude and corruption lead to irrelevance:

Congressional Irrelevance:

One interesting aspect of the recent government bailouts has been the complete irrelevance of Congress. The operation and decision-making seems to be run almost entirely by the Secretary of Treasury and Federal Reserve. Congress appears to lack the ability, the will, and the decisiveness to play any role except spectator, as a handful of senior executive branch officials have nationalized major portions of Wall Street.

What is further interesting is that Congress is not missed in the slightest. No one is clamoring for a greater role for our elected representatives in dealing with these problems. I haven't heard anyone saying, "We really need to get Congress more involved in this. They'll know what to do."

The other day, I offered my view that Congress today is fundamentally a silly place stocked with silly people. This latest situation illustrates the principle. I don't know whether Paulson and Bernanke are doing the right thing (I tend to think not). But I know for certain that I'd rather that they be making these decisions than Congress.

Moreover, this problem has become systemic. A recent Wall Street Journal article noted that the current Congress has enacted less legislation than any Congress in recent history--and that includes its many symbolic pieces of legislation such as renaming Post Offices. The output of administrative agencies dwarfs that of Congress. The Senate's behavior on judicial nominations is preposterous.

I sense a vicious cycle at work here. As Congress has become more dysfunctional and unable to address matters of public importance, the Executive Branch has stepped in to fill the gap. In turn, this allows Congress to behave in an even less-serious manner, which in turn necessitates further action by the Executive Branch. If the Executive waited for Congress to do anything, nothing would get done. So Congress essentially spends its time bloviating and posturing, while the unelected beavers in the bowels of the bureaucracy crank out federal regulations.

Put more generally, Congress's ridiculousness has increasingly caused it to forfeit its status a co-equal branch of government...