Kerby Anderson

We may have three co-equal branches of government, but they aren’t equal in their output. As I have mentioned in previous commentaries, Congress passes a few dozen significant laws each year while the executive branch puts out thousands and thousands of rules and regulations.

There are lots of reasons for the difference, including staff, funding, and workload. There are nearly 200 federal agencies with more than four million employees. The federal budget is $3.8 trillion. By contrast, Congress has a budget that is a small fraction of that and has to make due with limited staff.

What makes this disparity even worse is the sad fact that Congress isn’t in session as much as many citizens might think. And when Congress is in session, it usually convenes on a Tuesday-through-Thursday schedule. That means that members of Congress might only be in Washington about one-third of the year.

Most of us like the idea of a “citizen legislator” and reject the trend of a person being elected to Congress and staying for decades. It’s a great vision, but it runs up against the federal bureaucracy that works 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year. If Congress is going to provide oversight over the executive branch, members of Congress need to be there more than one-third of the time.

Of course, members of Congress have lots of obligations back home that range from meeting with constituents to raising money for their next campaign. While they might risk being labeled as “out of touch” by spending more time in Washington, they might gain respect from their constituents by getting more done while they are in Congress.

Too often unelected bureaucrats run our government because they are given very little oversight from Congress. Unless we change the workload and work schedule of Congress, that will continue. It’s time for Congress to get to work.