Forget “the one percent.” I want to know about the seven percent.
Last month, the Gallup polling outfit asked Americans about our confidence level in Congress. Did we have “a great deal, quite a lot, some or very little”?
Unlike the 93 percent of us with firing brain synapses, there appeared an enigmatic seven percent, folks who actually confessed to harboring “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of faith in that cabal of corrupt careerists legislating loquaciously in our nation’s Capitol.
It takes all kinds, I guess. The shadowy, slow-witted, and ill-informed must show up in statistics somewhere, right?
Granted, only five percent of Republicans expressed that much cockeyed confidence; it was six percent a year ago. Trusting Democrats hit double-digits, with ten percent believing congressional bull, a fall from the 17 percent hornswoggled in 2021.
Gullible independents came in at the overall average — seven percent — a decrease of five percentage points from last year, when 12 percent clutched a false sense of security regarding our federal legislature.
Among a long list of American institutions, Congress roused the absolute least confidence. Odd that we feel worse about the people we elect to represent us than those we have little if any direct responsibility for or control over.
This must change.
We desperately need term limits. And the competitive elections brought by creating smaller districts where grassroots campaigns employing shoe-leather can compete with the big money and special interest power behind professional politicians.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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3 replies on “The 7 Percenters”
I expect that the collapsing confidence in Congress will eventually be used not to effect changes to make government more representative, but to rationalize more overt oligarchy.
Congress is a Hobson’s (aka non-choice). Term limits will have folks behave as much as they can while setting up to steal as much as they can in their last term. Need to remove the profit motive if term limits is the only change. No accepted money from non‑v=constituents. No dabbling in the business of things they vote on, like stocks. No after political career job associated with DC.
Or……
Back to a real representative government. Repeat the 17th AND drastically expand the number of representatives do that each one is beholden to only 30 to 100,000, as Madison defined. Nothing that says that the House has to be in DC. But reps should definitely live where they represent. And the “no money from non-constituents” would be good either way
The seven percent probably consists of a large number of those who profit from government spending. It’s not all uninformed voters or die-hard partisans. You have government contractors, government employees at all levels, unions, NGOs and others, including donors. There are also multi-nationals that profit from globalization. Those who are forced to pay the taxes and deal with onerous regulations are not the people Congress (or most of the media) pays attention to. More than term limits, we need to be willing to throw incumbents out. Term limits won’t bring new blood into Congress. It will just bring more nepotism and corruption as different people from the same families and organizations take turns serving the same ends.
If we do get term limits, no one who serves should be eligible to receive a congressional pension prior to age 70.