We're reading this book in one of the courses I'm taking this summer. It's so insightfully provocative (and undoubtedly, some of my friends would have strong things to say to this author).
But it's amazing. It gives a rather disturbing reason as to why American government, specifically the Legislative Branch, is not functioning as smoothly and not serving the Americans to its full potential.
Congress has been trying to reform itself to satisfy the American hunger for more democratic-ness. But all that effort has turned out to have terrible unintended consequences. Let me try to explain what Fareed Zakaria has so expertly done so. Though I really cannot communicate anything nearly as well so I strongly advise you to read this enlightening and endearing book.
Let's take his example of election campaign funding reforms. Previously, extremely wealthy individuals were able to contribute large sums of money (millions even) to their preferred candidates for the campaigns. Now the limit is set to $1,000 per American's donation and $5,000 of contribution from political parties. Not even for the ever-evil and unfair PACs could exceed $5,000 donations. Thus, instead of candidates putting effort into campaigning with promises of more substance and quality - they are running around trying to impress the broad interests of the American masses in order to fund-raise and secure spending money.
Another example - lobbyists and interest groups. Yes, you're right, they serve the people's interests to have laws passed in their favor. But guess what? There's way too many interests and way too many people - and the government, under no circumstances, can satisfy all these wants efficiently. People are constantly complaining about the allocation of funds and how the government is spending too much money. Well, that's because money are spent on pointless things (such as asparagus competition, yes this is real). But why do Congressmen vote to fulfill these pointless and non-beneficial wishes? Because if they don't, a lobbyist or interest group member will immediately phone supporters and have them bombard the Representative with phone calls, emails, and faxes in a matter of seconds.
STOP PLACING BLAME ON OUR POLITICIANS. Much of the blame is to be put on US! We're too selfish and we want Congress to fulfill our every want. These individuals have to satisfy us so that they can receive our votes despite inefficiency. Their work is spread out too much and progress cannot be made as a consequence. Government functioned more competently back when deliberations were allowed to be made behind closed doors and not every Representative's vote was recorded next to their name for the public to see. FDR was able to implement the New Deal because he was able to cut off dumb, useless funding for things like asparagus (I keep using this one example because it portrays the ridiculousness of certain allocations of funding but there are MANY, MANY more just like it) to use the money to actually help the greater good of America rather than on pluralistically minuscule purposes. We need to stop fighting for ourselves as an individual but instead start to support our elected Congressmen by fighting for ourselves as a collective body of American citizens.
Oh, and stop hating on the President. Thanks.
I may have to pick up this book - it sounds like a breath of fresh air. I've always though that the state of our union has more to do with the population at large than our leaders, and it sounds like this book may be able to explain why. We put these extraordinary hindering pressures on our politicians, and then complain that they never get anything done. I just want to shake people sometimes - "You have the right to complain, just complain for the right reasons!" It's almost impossible for our leaders to lead anymore.
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