Congress is broken. The current Congress is incapable of fixing the issues our nation faces. We must take immediate and bold steps to reform Congress.

 1. Move to zero-based budgeting.

• Congress is lazy.  They take the previous year’s budget without any regard to where the money is being spent and just add a higher percentage to it—blindly.  This is not fiscally sound.  By contract, zero based budgeting requires a thorough review of the budget, giving opportunity to find and eliminate wasteful and obsolete projects. Everybody begins at zero, and during the review process no reference is made to previous levels of expenditures.

2. Mandate that no budget=no pay for Congress.

• Congress’ primary role is to provide funding for federal government. If they are not able to do this, then they have not earned their paycheck. It is irresponsible to not pass a budget.

3. Enforce work hours for Members.

• Ever been to a Congressional office? The staff is there, but the Congressman is usually out. This is unacceptable. We elect representatives to go to Washington and work for the people. They need to be required to work, at minimum, the same amount of hours as the average American worker.

4. Appoint committee members based on experience and expertise, not on seniority.

• Right now, committee appointments are based on seniority and backroom deals, instead of a Congressman’s knowledge of the issues relevant to the committee in question. It is fundamentally wrong to put someone in a position of power simply because they have been around the longest. Congressional committees must be chaired and staffed by those who have a background in the area being discussed.

5. Money spent on federal programs must match money coming in.

• We have a spending problem that must be fixed. Congress continuously enacts legislation that creates new programs, even if it does not have the money to do so.  We cannot ask American families to live within their budgets if Congress cannot live within theirs.