{"id":3988,"date":"2019-06-13T19:29:37","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T23:29:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/?p=3988"},"modified":"2019-06-13T19:29:37","modified_gmt":"2019-06-13T23:29:37","slug":"want-to-shrink-government-invest-in-making-congress-smarter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/want-to-shrink-government-invest-in-making-congress-smarter\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to shrink government? Invest in making Congress smarter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Real-Clear-Policy.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"3872\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/we-might-actually-get-budget-reform-this-year\/real-clear-policy\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Real-Clear-Policy.png\" data-orig-size=\"524,130\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Real Clear Policy\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Real-Clear-Policy-300x74.png\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Real-Clear-Policy.png\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3872\" src=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Real-Clear-Policy.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"524\" height=\"130\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Real-Clear-Policy.png 524w, https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Real-Clear-Policy-300x74.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 524px) 100vw, 524px\" \/><\/a>Barely\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/1600\/congress-public.aspx\">one in five<\/a><\/u>\u00a0Americans approve of the way Congress is operating. It is overwhelmingly clear that Congress needs to do a better job of\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/policy-and-politics\/2018\/4\/10\/17222062\/mark-zuckerberg-testimony-graham-facebook-regulations\">understanding<\/a>\u00a0<\/u>complex policy issues, being responsive to communications from the American people, and overseeing the\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalaffairs.com\/publications\/detail\/how-to-strengthen-congress\">170-some agencies<\/a><\/u>\u00a0of the executive branch.<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, after decades of\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/firstbranchforecast.com\/2019\/03\/01\/the-congress-edifice-problem\/\">institutional<\/a><\/u>\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/articles\/20181018\/10204640869\/decline-congressional-expertise-explained-10-charts.shtml\">decline<\/a><\/u>, Congress is finally taking steps to revitalize itself. In January, the House created the\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/modernizecongress.house.gov\/\">Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress<\/a><\/u>\u00a0to help bring the Legislature into the 21st century. Additionally, the House Appropriations Committee has advanced several important\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/firstbranchforecast.com\/2019\/05\/13\/2019-05-13\/\">reforms<\/a><\/u>\u00a0\u2014 one of which includes allocating funding to restart the Office of Technology Assessment, which can help Congress make more informed decisions on complex science and technology issues like encryption, cybersecurity and gene editing&#8230;.(<a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearpolicy.com\/articles\/2019\/06\/13\/want_to_shrink_government_invest_in_making_congress_smarter_111217.html\">Read more<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barely\u00a0one in five\u00a0Americans approve of the way Congress is operating. It is overwhelmingly clear that Congress needs to do a better job of\u00a0understanding\u00a0complex policy issues, being responsive to communications from the American people, and overseeing the\u00a0170-some agencies\u00a0of the executive branch. Thankfully, after decades of\u00a0institutional\u00a0decline, Congress is finally taking steps to revitalize itself. In January, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[160,185],"tags":[183],"class_list":["post-3988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress","category-government-oversight","tag-real-clear-policy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pBCzY-12k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3988"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3990,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3988\/revisions\/3990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}