Shoulda, Coulda, Oughta

Our elected officials would rather complain about problems than solve them.

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Immigrants keep warm by a fire at dawn after spending a night alongside the U.S.-Mexico border fence on December 22, 2022 in El Paso, Texas. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images.)

Dear Reader (Including those of you who are just reading this to avoid your crazy uncle’s holiday rantings),

My favorite scene in Christopher Best’s A Mighty Wind is a bit obscure. Ed Begley Jr. is kibitzing in the control room for the big TV special that’s about to start very soon. He starts telling the director how great it would be to have a crane. “Another great thing would be one of those shots where you pull back to see the enormity of the event and the venue—would be a crane. Do we have a crane standing by?”

“No, we don’t have a crane.”

Begley keeps talking about how great it would be to have a crane, as if the key to getting one is persuading the director that it would be good to have one. “You know those swooping shots where it goes over the audience and hammers in on a shot of one of the musicians playing?”

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  1. Blaise V Jones

    Um, that's not really a photo by John Moore, is it? Looks like a painting to me.

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  2. Brook

    Agree with everything Jonah wrote. I especially agree with the tone of his message. But, how do we elect members of Congress who will face up to and deal with reality? Ranked voting in primaries? Or is there a better idea?

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  3. MikeS

    Given that the IRA actually does deal with energy policy in detail, its inclusion here is misguided. The main policy is weaning the US off of fossil fuels. The subsidiary question -- well how do you deal with fossil fuels while they are still necessary because the weaning cannot be immediate? -- is also addressed in the IRA, at least partially, and that is a good example of just what Jonah complains that we don't do.

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  4. Paulkohlhoff

    It doesn't seem a lot has changed changed as far as politicians using whatever tools are available to tap into voters emotions to garner votes. I believe the Daisy ad of of '64 or Willie Horton of '88 are not lot of different from most campaigns on social media today as far as intent. What seems to be different, most apparent in congress, is that once the campaign is over and you've won, you now have an actual job to do. Other than a constant access to mass communication tools and a public that will be attentive to short bursts of emotional charged rhetoric, what else has changed? Maybe, actually becoming elected isn't the real goal any more and everyone just wants to be an "influencer".

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  5. Very Old Grumpy Guy

    Jonah - C'mon, you can't expect politicians to halt the money train. Immigration and the other things you mentioned are still problems because they generate an enormous amount of money for both parties - much more money than they could EVER raise if they came up with a reasonable compromise. Keeping this issues in play also generates a ton of eyeballs (money) for the various media outlets. As long as a lack of solutions allows these segments to "earn" (meant how gangsters use the term in most movies) us normal jamokes will have a free blinding rage session everyday as we listen to the ruling castes spout their nonsense.

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  6. DTruitt

    What lots of people point to as a bug - the fact that government only rarely gets their crap together to enact new laws to do something - is actually a feature of our democratic republic.

    "Don't just do something - stand there!" is actually what the collective majority of our citizens really want, besides griping about what we say we want or need and don't have. The reality is always that the government that governs least governs best. We Americans really dislike radical change - so anytime our representatives get together to enact a new law that really shakes things up, we come to realize how much that change actually sucks compared to what we had before (see, "ObamaCare").

    To claim that our government is dysfunctional because it rarely rouses itself to really eff things up, is about as wrong headed as political punditry gets.

    If things really, truly, get very very bad, as in a national emergency, our representatives WILL rouse themselves and do something about it ... and then a few months or years down the road when all the so-called "unintended consequences" clearly come home to roost, then we have to either fix things again, or else this new reality becomes the baseline of what we voters all bitch about constantly.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Ben Connelly

      Except that by not legislating, Congress isn’t ensuring that the federal government governs least. All it’s doing is abdicating responsibility to the administrative state which is far less accountable to voters at the same time as it is likely to overgovern/“eff things up”/create economic distortions/infringe on liberty. I would prefer Congress pass bills and also repeal old laws at the same time. And I would definitely prefer a Congress that passed budgets via regular order and appropriations process as opposed to the mess we have now.

      The government isn’t governing least and Congress being dysfunctional won’t help that.

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    2. D

      There's a difference between "hard to pass laws by design" and "abdicates all responsibilities and does nothing."

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  7. Dougrhon

    Man does Jonah nail it here. To the extent our government is failing it is because Congress, on a bi-partisan basis has simply abdicated it's vital role both as the legislative entity AND as a check on the executive. The last time Congress even attempted to do it's job as an institution was when Newt Gingrich was speaker of the house.

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  8. Philebus

    From above: "Of course, COVID and immigration are just facets of the colossal disco ball of Congress’ institutional failure, under Democrats and Republicans, radiating across the land".

    So well said. I'll find use for that in some future conversation - a perfect image created in the brain. That's why we enjoy reading you.

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    Ed P

    “Politicians and pundits alike are very comfortable talking about what our policies ought to be or not be“

    I disagree and this is a large part of our current problems. Very few Republican candidates lay out actual policy preferences in 2022. They lay out grievances and basic ideology. But specific policy preference is fleeting and rare from the right side of the aisle, at least among those with actual proximity to power, politicians.

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  10. Dadgum41

    You go, Jonah. Festivus for the rest of us!
    My Christmas miracle wish: LEGISLATORS! DO YOUR JOBS!

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