How Washington Actually Works For Dummies by Greg Rushford

Author:Greg Rushford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2012-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Congress

In This Chapter

Reading Congress’s job description

Eyeing the structure and leadership of the Senate and House

Figuring out why Congress works by committee

Tracing the path from bill to law

Following the money trail

Congress occupies the U.S. Capitol: a massive, stunning white structure with a famous dome that sits at the end of the Mall in Washington, D.C. (on a hill — hence Capitol Hill, or simply The Hill). From the halls of Congress, bills are born, expanded, contracted, and then sent to the President’s desk for signature. From these same halls, a legislative chain of checks and balances is forged that aims to help ensure the proper functioning of the executive and judicial branches of government. Currently, 535 members, who represent all 50 states, work within Congress’s two chambers: the Senate and the House of Representatives.

In this chapter, we lay out the functions of Congress, how these functions structure the way legislators conduct the business of the nation, how the members of Congress come to find themselves walking the Capitol’s hallowed halls, and what they do in order to stay there.

Browsing the Basic Responsibilities of Congress

At its core, Congress exists to prevent the executive branch from exercising total control over U.S. legislation — something the writers of the Constitution wished to avoid at all costs lest the United States become just another monarchy or dictatorship. In this section, we explain the work Congress does to achieve this end.

With Congress possessing the sole power to draft and pass the laws of the land — leaving the President limited to signing or vetoing said laws — no one group can hold sway over the direction in which the United States is governed. (Even when a single party controls the executive branch and both the Senate and House, that party’s competitors still have a say in how Congress acts.) While Congress is often seen as a group that slows rather than expedites the process of democracy, its function as a body of debate and compromise is essential to the health of the American experiment.

Wielding the power of the purse

First and foremost, the work of Congress is about money — a subject that, one way or another, touches the daily lives of every American citizen.

Members of Congress determine how much, how often, and in what circumstances to tax the American people. They also decide how tax revenues are appropriated and spent across the entire federal government. (Most of your tax money is actually spent by the executive branch, although Congress and the federal courts also have their own budgets.) Commonly referred to as the power of the purse, this responsibility is the primary check on the executive branch’s power. In other words, this function of Congress prevents the President from ever using the national treasury as his personal bank account.

Though both the Senate and House have equal authority, only the House is authorized to originate revenue and appropriations bills. (And, as we explain later in this chapter, the House is more beholden to popular opinion than the Senate because of its structure.

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