Top Ten Goals for Congress

Earlier this month, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the Senate would cut its August recess short in order to finish important tasks, including the appropriations process and judicial confirmations. However, to avoid such situations in the future, Congress needs to consider additional changes to enable it to spend more time addressing our nation’s most pressing issues and bridging the divide between parties.

Congress should conduct a top-down review of how Congress conducts its business. Here’s a Top Ten list of goals we think should result:

1.  Budgets and funding bills completed on time.
2.  Full, rigorous floor debates with the ability to offer and vote on amendments.
3.  Less grandstanding in hearings and more bipartisan learning.
4.  True bipartisan oversight to ensure government programs are efficient and effective.
5.  More time each week spent doing its job and less time fundraising.
6.  Monthly meetings between both parties in both chambers to build stronger cooperation.
7.  Regular monthly meetings between congressional leadership and the president.
8.  Full-fledged “conference committees” on important legislation, to hammer out differences between the two chambers.
9.  Bills posted at least three days in advance so members of Congress and the public know what’s being voted on.
10.  More civil tone in debates.

Do you agree? Let your representative and senators know. If Congress is serious about accomplishing these ten goals, it will be able to better represent the millions of Americans counting on its leadership each and every day.