Somewhere among all these posts is one where I talked about how the problems that the politicians were going to fix have been the same all my life. The political ads from the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s could be used today with a small bit of "polishing". Our elected representatives have been correcting inequities and solving the same problems for as long as I have been hearing politicians. I am sure it goes back way before me!
If the politicians wanted to (or giving them the benefit of the doubt - were able to) solve these issues - they would have - period.
There are also posts here where I try to delineate the powers and responsibility of the branches of our government as outlined in the Constitution. I will not go there again (if you care - go looking), I will just say that the three branches have to work together - at least somewhat - to get anything done. As a reminder the three branches are the Executive (President), the Judicial (the federal courts headed by the Supremes), and the Legislative (which is divided into the Senate and the House of Representatives). For this discussion I am going to leave the judicial branch out even though they do come into play, especially with our modern outlook on the courts, when any large legislative change is made.
To get a change in the governmental definition, regulation, and/or control of something requires both houses of Congress to approve a bill outlining the said definition, regulation, and/or control. Then this bill goes to the President to sign. This process is almost always fraught with disagreements between the different parties and houses of Congress. If the same party is in control of both houses, the process is much easier (note - I did not say "better" just easier - one could make an argument for making change difficult to make sure it was correct). If the President is also of the same party - the bill is almost assured of becoming law.
I started by mentioning that the same problems/issues were being brought up by today's politicians in their ads. They were going to make it all better. If we elect (or more to my point here - reelect) them they will go to (or back) to Washington and solve these issues for us - the people! I am calling B.S. in case you haven't caught that yet. I have some interesting numbers about control of our government by the two major parties since World War 2. That is 76 years" 1945 - 2021 - 38 Congresses (one is seated every 2 years), 19 Presidential terms (every 4 years). During this 76 year period:
the Party in control of the House was:
Democrat - 52 years Republican - 24 years
the Party in control of the Senate was:
Democrat - 50 years Republican - 26 years
Years one party controlled BOTH chambers at the same time:
Democrat - 44 years Republican - 18 years
the Party in the White House:
Republican - 40 years Democrat - 36 years
And the "golden ticket" - years one party controlled all three:
Democrat - 22 years Republican - 8 years
Also worth noting - years the President's party had
no Congressional control: (the opposition held control over both houses of Congress)
Republican - 20 years Democrat - 10 years
You can see that each party has had enough control to "solve" something during at least one term. The Democrats have had much more control, but the Republicans have had some chances as well.
I am not sure exactly where I want to go with this. I wanted for people to see how silly the argument that the politicians make in their political ads are when they say "elect me, and I will ..." (insert "solve") - poverty, homelessness, corruption, discrimination, etc. - (or "build/bring back") our defenses, working across the aisle, lowering taxes/increasing taxes on some "evil" group, or serving the people, etc.
We keep electing the same people to Congress in large part as well. There are many, many members of Congress that have been there for more than 20 years and a large number that are approaching or have exceeded 40 years! Some of these are in the House! The House of Representative was set up as the "people's chamber". It has 2 year terms as the founders saw it as being populated by the people. They saw it as a way to get fresh ideas into government from people that knew what government needed to do to help real people. We now have a government run by a political class in large part. They get to Washington and stay, and stay, and stay...
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