Letter: Nothing will change until Congress is overhauled, he says

TO THE EDITOR: Those that recall their political science classes will remember the separation of powers dictated by the U.S. Constitution.

Separation that, in reality, grants little authoritative powers to the office of the president. Powers that, for the most part, are limited to persuasion, influence and pressure.

There is some limited power in the issuance of executive orders and of legislative veto, neither of which is absolute. The true authoritative power lays with congress. It is congress that approves the federal budget, declares war and passes legislation. The president can do none of those actions.

We get concerned when the president’s approval rating gets below 45 percent and we chastise, complain and demand change, hoping the next president can magically fix things. We show little concern that approval of congress, where the true power resides, is below 15 percent.

Next November, we will go to the polls and either re-elect the sitting president or his challenger. All in the hope that, magically, one of them can rescue us from the social/economic chaos the country is in. With the same pen, we will re-elect the very people responsible for putting us in the current predicament in the first place.

Some of us are concerned that there is grid-lock in Washington D.C., nothing seems to get accomplished. With the current congress, maybe that’s a good thing.

It is my opinion that nothing will get changed in the country’s economic and social mess until we overhaul congress.

Tags: opinion, letters, politics