WASHINGTON – On July 4 week, Michael Schwing of Baltimore, Md., learned of the existence of a bill known as HR 1545, which would effectively reduce his earnings potential as a senior federal IT worker by up to 40 percent.
So Schwing began doing what good Americans have been taught to do since grade school – calling congressmen. He called Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. He called Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md. He called Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., R-Md., his own congressional representative. He called two of the bill’s sponsors from outside his state, the chairman of the committee where the bill currently resides and another senator rumored to be willing to take up the bill in the Senate.
He asked staffers in each office to get back to him as this was an urgent matter.
“I received absolutely not one single return phone call,” says Schwing. “Not one piece of e-mail. No e-mails. Nothing. I could not get a position over the phone from any one of (them), nor apparently can I get one to return a call.”
This is a familiar story to those of us who hear directly from Americans by the hundreds or thousands a day through e-mail. American taxpayers increasingly are feeling out of touch, alienated, dismissed and taken for granted by their elected officials in Washington.
Now, Schwing doesn’t expect you or me or very many others to get exercised over a federal employee losing his overtime. That’s not the point. The point is about responsiveness by government officials. Whatever happened to that concept?
The only kind of communication most constituents receive, anymore, are form letters unresponsive to the direct questions and concerns they raised. And, this is one of the very big reasons so many people write to me feeling helpless to affect policy in Washington.
Of course, they also get plenty of mailers around campaign time – boasting of their heroic accomplishments, all paid for at taxpayer expense, of course.
Over and over again, on a daily basis, people write to me exasperated with their attempts to get through to their elected officials to make their voices heard, to get questions answered, to weigh in on some vital public policy issue. They grow more and more frustrated in their fruitless attempts.
“What can we do, Farah?” they beg. “Please don’t tell me to write my congressman, again.”
I think it’s time for a change of tactics.
I’m impressed, for instance, with Robert Schulz’s attempts to get attention from Internal Revenue Service officials and others in the administration with regard to his questioning the legitimacy of the income tax system. Will it work? Time will tell. But it’s clearly an illustration of just how desperate Americans are becoming in simply getting their elected officials to listen and respond.
I doubt very many Americans will go to such lengths – literally risking their lives for the sake of being heard in Washington. But it’s going to take radical action – demonstrations, street protests, civil disobedience. That’s apparently the only language they understand in Washington these days.
One of the problems we have with our unresponsive Congress is the simple fact that House members represent too many constituents today. This was not the intent of the Constitution when it was ratified. This was the branch of government that would be closest to the people and the number of constituents was strictly limited to 30,000.
As the population increased, that kind of representation was thought to be impractical because the House would be forced to meet in Madison Square Garden or some other large facility. But so what? Maybe that would be best. Maybe that kind of a House should get together once or twice a year and deal with strictly constitutional business instead of producing thousands and thousands of laws – each further restricting the freedom of ordinary Americans and empowering the new ruling elite.
Perhaps if the House was forced to meet only occasionally in a large arena, these jokers wouldn’t feel so self-important. Maybe they wouldn’t be seducing interns and congressional pages. Maybe they wouldn’t be cheating on their spouses. Maybe they wouldn’t look at politics as their life’s career. Maybe they would have more time to answer their constituents.
