Wrong measure applied to congressman

By ROBERT JOHNSON
In My Opinion

April 11, 2008 05:53 am

— Part of campaigning for a congressional seat is having editorial boards with the various newspapers across the district. These take the form of interviews with two or more representatives of the newspaper, usually with the either the publisher and/or the managing editor in attendance. Whether it was the Syracuse Post Standard, the Watertown Daily Times, the Press-Republican of Plattsburgh or the Ogdensburg Journal, the question invariably asked was: Why should we elect you when you will not be able to match the money that can be brought back to the district by a seasoned member who has seniority.
So those are the pragmatics of being a congressman. You are measured by how much money you can raid from the U.S. Treasury and bring back to the district. Mind you, these questions come from unabashed Republicans who run these newspapers, the most partisan of which is John Johnson of the Watertown Times. The same Republicans who demand tax cuts but want the cash under the table from Washington. I always thought it ingenuous and certainly inconsistent with their desire to "starve the beast" so that the government would have to cut back on its spending. That never stopped them from singing the praises of our congressman about all the money that he brought back to the district.
My usual answer was that I was running for congress to enact national policy and -- what was good for the United States, was good for the North Country. They just rolled their eyes and smirked -- how naive. I would then quickly add, being a member of the majority, no matter how junior, was better than being a member of the minority no matter how senior.
DangerDemocrat posted a blog entry about John McHugh's prowess at bringing home bacon to the district. Yes, Mr. McHugh brought back $18,906,700 to the 23rd. The real question is, how does that compare to the bacon that freshman house members in the majority can command and bring back? It turns out, it's chickenfeed. Not only that, but the money only goes to a relatively few people.
Mike Arcuri, the freshman from the 24th, brought back $28,871,968, and Kirsten Gillibrand, freshman from the 20th brought back $23,849,244. So with all that seniority and all that "influence," two upstart freshmen do better than our congressman. So much for the conventional wisdom that seniority is everything in Congress.
I will guarantee you, just as he has done in every other election, about now, our congressman will associate himself with every drop of grant money that comes back here, regardless of the fact that the individuals who actually applied for the money and filled out the grant paperwork did all the work. I personally would be insulted if I did all the legwork and someone else took the credit. The mystique is that, somehow, without the congressman's "influence," the grant would not have been successful. That is exactly what he wants you to think, but it is so far from the truth.
To those of you who think that the only reason we send a representative to Washington is to bring back pork money, the clear conclusion is that anyone in the majority party is going to do better than our present congressman, regardless of whether he gets to be the ranking MINORITY member on the Armed Services Committee.
So what could he have done to help all of us? For one thing, he could have backed and sponsored legislation for national health insurance. Not only would that have covered each and every one of us, but after the cost savings of reining in the insurance companies, the drug companies and the trial lawyers, it would have saved every man, women and child in this district $2,480.
He could have sponsored and backed legislation that would get us out of a war that we should never have started and where we do not belong. Considering that the Iraq war is conservatively going to cost $3 TRILLION that would be a savings of $10,610 for every man, woman and child in the district. So instead of bringing back the equivalent of $29.07 for each person in the district, he could have saved each of us, $13,090 -- money in our pockets.
Of course, if he did that, he couldn't collect the campaign contributions from the drug companies, the insurance companies and the defense contractors to keep him in office and guarantee that we will be paying his pension for the rest of his life. You see, it really all does come down to money.