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What Congress can learn from Beyoncé
When Congress returns to work after this election, it can learn a thing or two from Destiny’s Child and their 1999 hit song “Bills, Bills, Bills.” In it Beyoncé castigates a “scrub” for not owning up to his financial obligations and sticking her with the consequences, a parallel that could easily be applied to Congress and the American people.
Although Beyoncé is singing about “telephone bills” and “automo’ bills” instead of bills of the legislative variety, she could just as easily turn the tune on Congress and ask, “Can you pay your your bills? Pay your Pentagon bills. Your state and foreign ops bills. Your other appropriations bills.” The syllables even map right onto the tune, which many who remember the classic hit will likely realize as they vocalize the altered lyrics.
{mosads}For years, some in Congress have had a bad habit of treating the nation’s bills as an all-or-nothing package, and arguments over water and welfare often delay critical funding for defense and homeland security. But lawmakers who hold hostage appropriations bills that would easily pass as a bargaining chip in disputes over more contentious bills are behaving irresponsibly and not doing the jobs they were elected to do.
The flawed logic that tries to justify this annual practice says that all federal funding is important, therefore it is ok to hold up one appropriations bill because you do not have everything you want in another. But following this logic, should American households refuse to pay their electricity bills if they have a dispute with their water or cable company over those bills?
While the budget committees may determine allocations for the federal budget as a whole, the subsequent work of the appropriations committees is divided up among various categorical subcommittees for good reason in order to allow the government’s expenses to be scrutinized in hearings and paid individually when that work is done via separate appropriations bills.
Any head of a household who lets his or her family’s electricity get cut off for non-payment because they are upset with the cable company over extra fees on that bill would and should be fired as bill payer-in-chief. And so too should lawmakers who delay passing and paying any of the country’s bills because of dissatisfaction with another bill be fired by their constituents on Election Day.
Or as Beyoncé would bluntly put it when holding them to account: “So, you and me are through.”
Alexander Nicholson is a political consultant, strategist, and published author based in Washington, D.C.
The views expressed by authors are their own and not the views of The Hill.
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