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Ivan Parkins |
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©Ivan W. Parkins 2008, All articles, text, web pages property of
Ivan W. Parkins. Use of any material
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About
Ivan W. Parkins: Dr.
Parkins is a retired professor of Political Science from Central Michigan
University. He received his PhD from
the University of Chicago and is a graduate of the United States Naval
Academy. Dr. Parkins served as a naval
officer during WWII aboard the battleship Alabama. He is a recent widower with three
daughters, 3 grand children and 2 great grand children. Dr. Parkins has written extensively, having
authored 3 books and a newspaper opinion column for many years. |
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Naked Emperors Newt Gingrich’s
revolution, taking over the House of Representatives in the elections of
1994, can not be appreciated unless one first understands that for an
unprecedented time, 40 years or twenty Congresses, the Democrats had held
firm control of the House. They took
it from Eisenhower’s Republicans in 1954 by a margin of 29 votes, and 29
votes was the smallest margin of their control for 40 years. In seven Congresses the Democrats
controlled the House by 100 votes or more.
None of the Republican advantages in the six years (1995-2001)
following the Gingrich’s victory was by a margin as large as 29 votes. Scot Faulkner’s book Naked Emperors details his effort as
first-ever chief administrative officer of the House to correct the
management problems left by 40 years of Democrat majorities. Faulkner had no legislative authority; his
job was to oversee how 800 million
dollars was spent and how 13,000 employees served the needs of House
Members. For starters, a private
accounting firm called in to do an audit quit, the records were simply too
few and poorly kept for auditing. The reform met with strong
resistance. Why should any Member not
be happy with a bank where his checks would be cashed and no one had
authority to demand that he make deposits?
Recent media stories had forced release of names of the 303 Members
(both parties) who were taking advantage of that. The largest such individual “indebtedness
totaled nearly $600,000. Contracts for services and supplies were
often missing. Apparently, they were
let as political favors and evidence had been destroyed. Thousands of lobbyists and journalists had
passes to enter the Capitol Building after the hours available to mere
citizens. Faulkner’s book is very specific about
persons, times, places, and other details.
Obviously, he is presenting his report of his work. Not so obviously, because poorly publicized,
that work attracted dozens of foreign officials, including at least one
Russian anxious to learn of how to provide better services to a legislative
body. He and his management team
achieved at least one real First, The first reduction of a House budget in
the Twentieth century. Some of this makes dull reading. But, it is worth at least a quick skim by
any citizen serious about voting in the 2008 elections. Some of the Congresspersons involved are
still there, and they have more seniority and power. Should we now trust the party that had
40 years of solid majorities in the House prior to 1995, and now is in control again,
to oversee the management and budgets of our government’s other branches? I.W.
Parkins |
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Congress, Is It Broken? |
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Confused Elections Our national election system has become
confused in ways that hamper effective leadership and obscure partisan
responsibility. Since 1948, the first
post WWII presidential election, five democrats (Truman, Kennedy, Johnson,
Carter, and Clinton) have won office.
There have also been five Republican winners (Eisenhower, Nixon,
Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, G. W. Bush). But, contrary to our previous history,
there has been little apparent correlation between presidential election
successes and congressional support.
In 1992, Clinton, who had just won 43% of the popular vote, entered
office with larger majorities in both houses of Congress than any Republican
President has had since the 1920’s. Carter, a majority winner of the popular
vote with 50.1% got one of the largest congressional majorities in our
history. Among recent Democrats, only Truman and
Clinton have had to face Congresses dominated by the other party, and neither
of those Presidents won a majority of the popular vote. Among the five recent Republicans were
three winners of landslide reelections (Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan) and
none of them got a Republican Congress with his new term. Do American consciously vote against
leadership and for partisan conflict, or are other factors shaping our
election results? |
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Front Page
Archive 2008
Archive 2009 Page
2, Disassemble the House Page
3, Media Bias Page
4, Book Reviews Page
5, War and Their Costs |
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Congress Road to Chaos It takes a bizarre partisanship for the
majority of 110th. Congress to suppose that their modest victory
(in an election attended by nearly 30 million fewer American voters than
elected the 109th. (Two years earlier) mandates major changes in the nations
direction. The evidence suggests more
clearly that many Americans are alienated and confused about how their
government does, or does not, work. Congress has come to believe that
oversight of the Executive and Judicial Branches is it’s most
important function. And, the resulting
conflicts
do win media attention. Meanwhile,
Congress focuses too little of its attention on providing our country with
effective laws for dealing with immigration,
energy needs, etc. Even more
significantly, Congress fails to approve timely, manageable, and “clean”
budgets. If the United States is to
survive and to prosper, it cannot afford a Legislative Branch that neglects
its own primary, and most constructive, powers while it interferes in
time-consuming and other damaging ways with the Executive and Judicial
Branches. No simple reform will remedy what has
become a systemic and institutional failure of Congress. The problem extends beyond the short
comings of individual members and practices.
Congress must be reconstituted to be both closer to the American
people and more respectful of the other branches. Anything less is just more pavement on the
road to chaos. I.W. Parkins |
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Reconstitute Congress One concern of those who drafted the Constitution of the United States
was that representatives should not have such small constituencies that the
office would fail to attract able candidates.
Even so, Chairman of the Convention, George Washington, called for a
minimum constituency of 30,000 instead of the already approved 40,000. This was his only suggestion regarding
details of the Constitution and it was adopted. THE FEDERALIST, No. 51 states
that “dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the
government.” No. 52 adds “… it is particularly essential that ..” the
representative “… have an immediate dependence on and an intimate sympathy
with the people.” Now, with the congressional
districts having average populations of about
690,000, and with only 524,160 minutes in a year, we face a very
different situation. All Representatives,
whatever their origins, become members of the upper class by virtue of their
salaries and perks alone. The long
sessions and increasing details of
their involvement in nearly all matters of government, keep their minds and
bodies within the confines of the “Beltway” most of the time. National journalists, pollsters, lobbyists,
and congressional staff members, along with legislative “earmarks,” get them
reelected. Meanwhile, it is literally
impossible for them to allot one minute of their time per year to each
constituent. The House was intended to reflect changes in public
opinion. It too often reflects entrenched political power and
privilege. My
proposal, now very old and not so much forgotten as dissed, i.e. never widely
considered, was "Let's Disassemble the House,"--the title of my
article in SOUTH ATLANTIC QUARTERLY, Spring 1960. The legally fixed
number of the United States Representatives is now 435, far more than the
Framers, and I, believed to be practical for a legislative assembly.
But, with our vastly expanded national population and improvements in
communication, wouldn't it be possible, now, for much more numerous
representatives to operate separately, from their several districts?
And, wouldn't the representatives then be much more directly dependent on and
sympathetic with their constituents? My
submission of that to a couple of dozen political scientists, some
acquaintances and some not, produced several and mostly similar
responses. My idea was declared to be original, interesting, logical,
and sound in its description of Congress. But, it was unlikely to be
accepted and unworkable. Such comments came from senior people at
Harvard, Cornell, Miami of Ohio, and the Legislative Reference Service of the
Library of Congress. My chief reply, now, would be that the present
House looks less effective and our population and communications improvements
continue to grow. A much
larger number of disassembled representatives would be a very practical
defense if our nation's capital were to be destroyed. It should also
provide a suitable base for nominating presidential candidates--as the
earliest Congresses did. It should reduce the need for vast media
advertising and the money to pay for that. Most of all, it should
encourage more extensive and meaningful involvement of "the people"
in major policy decisions. Our representatives should
be much more numerous; they should spend most of their working time in their
districts; and they should have infrequent, but authoritative votes on major
public issues. In order to add that to
the Constitution, I suggest the following:
(See “Disassemble the House,”
Page two) |
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AMERICA’S HARD POLITICAL CHOICES The United
State entered the twenty-first century clearly foremost among nations as a
productive economic unit, as an influence upon civil rights and freedoms, and
as a military power. If the present
world crisis is to be limited in its destructive effects and its endurance,
it will most likely be due to the leadership and military efforts of this
nation. And that presents American
citizens with several hard choices. First,
little of our own oil supply now comes from the Middle-East. Canada and Mexico are our leading
suppliers. However, some of our
closest friends and trading partners, Japan for instance, do rely heavily
upon Middle-Eastern oil. In 1991, we
fought a brief war, partly for that reason.
And our effort was financed largely by Japan and others. Our present military efforts are in part an
extension of that effort. Are we now
willing to risk our voluminous foreign trade and our security, even at home,
on the possibility that we can escape the chief effects of a militant and
totalitarian movement dominating the Middle-East? Second,
although we completed the twentieth century as the world’s foremost military
power, we have one critical vulnerability.
National will and unity are vital to military strength. And, America displayed it’s lack of those
during the conflict in Vietnam.
Furthermore, the present conflict is not one in which we can expect
“time-out” to decide. Such delays are
of value only to the combatant party that adds to it’s strength most rapidly. Third, a
traditional American belief that politics should end at the water’s edge has
been sorely lacking of late, especially in the more severe partisanship of
one particular major party. Democrat
Professor Barbara Sinclair’s PARTY WARS, as well as some observations of my
own, seem to confirm that. Finally, we
are now facing a likely choice between two candidates for the Presidency who
hold very different views of the situation.
Only one of them has substantial military training and experience. And, surprisingly perhaps, only that same
one has substantial experience with cross-partisan cooperation.--- I. W.
Parkins, 5/08 |
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A WORLD CRISIS Unprecedented
billions of people, living in the world today, enjoy greater individual
comforts, security, and opportunities than was previously possible. But, at least one critical threat to most
of human progress has emerged. This
crisis has three major features. First, the
burgeoning of world-wide communication and trade is heavily dependent upon a
particular natural resource that is currently in short supply. Without adequate oil supply the world’s
economic boom will almost certainly stall.
And, some of the consequences of that are likely to be horrendous. Second, a
large part of the oil likely to be available in the next decade comes from
one region, the Middle-East.
Unfortunately, many of the nations of that regions are not very
strong, and they are Islamic. Also,
from that region, there has emerged a quasi-religious terrorist movement, and
that movement is sworn to use all means of dominating the nations, their
religion, and the oil. Partly with
violence, and partly with oil, they hope to dominate the rest of the world as
well. Third and
ultimately, humanity and many of our freedoms will almost certainly survive
this crisis. The real issue is whether
or not that will become obvious in the lifetimes of any who are now
living. I. W. Parkins-5/08 |