http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/07/24/congress-you-need-to-skip-your-vacation.aspx Congress: You Need to Skip Your Vacation
Katie Connolly
Many moons ago I worked in a consulting firm. We worked against strict deadlines. Some days we just couldn’t work fast enough. On those days we didn’t get to go home at 8 p.m., have dinner with our loved ones, and get a good night’s sleep. We just kept working. Sometimes till 3 a.m., sometimes all night. We simply weren’t allowed to miss a deadline. We couldn’t tell clients that our discussions had taken too long. They were paying us to produce, and produce we would. If you had a vacation planned but your work wasn’t done, forget about it. Here at NEWSWEEK, if we are running late on a story, we don’t skip publishing that week’s magazine. We have a commitment to our subscribers. Even when I was in high school, if we didn’t finish our work, we’d have to stay after class. I think you get the point. The comparisons are endless. So here’s my argument. Congress has a commitment to voters and to the health of Americans. It also had a clear deadline. So why should it get to have an August recess?
Now, I’m no populist, and the populist tone of that last sentence irks me. I’m not one for knee-jerk reactions. Generally, I think it is important for members of Congress to take some time outside the Beltway, reconnect with their constituents, and brush up on policy ideas. I believe they mostly work very hard and deserve some time off. And I’d prefer a refreshed senator to a tired, crabby one. But here’s my point: the August deadline for passing health reform hasn’t been a secret. The president couldn’t have been clearer about his time frame for health-care reform. Certainly it is a complex and thorny issue, from both a political and a policy perspective. But given the dire cost projections and quality-of-life implications, it’s also arguably the most important public-policy issue of the moment. OK, maybe it’s tied with the environment and energy, but the difference is that health policy has been studied for decades. And as former senator Tom Daschle told me Wednesday, members of Congress have been thinking about these issues for years. Indeed, Ezra Klein smartly points out that the Senate Finance Committee has been holding hearings on the matter for more than a year. So why should Congress break the deadline? In my book, there’s really no excuse.
Personally, I’d like to see Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi exert some tough leadership. I’d like them to tell their members, in their best schoolteacher voices, that no one goes home until their work is done. I certainly don’t argue that this should be a precedent, just as I don’t contend that working like junior associates in banks and law firms is an appropriate or desirable business model. Far from it. But sometimes there are issues of such significance that they warrant the extra hours. Congress has a history of allowing important issues to languish and, in doing so, dilute the effectiveness of its solutions. As the president has pointed out, there are times when forcing a deadline is necessary to force action. The range of options is pretty clear, as is the scope of the problem. As Sen. Ted Kennedy pointed out in our cover story this week, reform is so close you can almost smell it. Taking a break won’t bring it closer.
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