It’s really quite extraordinary. Congress is inert, impotent, and powerless. Five hundred and thirty-five aggressive men and women elected to the House of Representatives or the Senate to do good are doing almost nothing.
In the meantime, President Trump and his sidekick, Elon Musk, have deployed high-risk organizational moves against an organization’s most important asset: its people.
I actually led a government agency, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and found a mix of employees. Some were gifted and dedicated; others were just happy to have a job and did what was needed to keep it. And, of course, there were variations. But, on day one or for that matter day sixty-one my management team and I were still learning about the employees of the Commission which I chaired.
A large segment of FCC employees were engineers specializing in frequency-related science and communications applications from earthly to celestial. The networks they authorized and monitored have been the best in the world.
Musk’s DOGE team is involved in body count. I presume there is an employment floor based on dollar counts, and they are using a variety of techniques to reach it. One might ask how the floor has been established and whether employees are commodities that can be embraced or whacked according to numerical goals. But, back to Congress.
The Congress makes laws and appropriates the dollars to fulfill the intent. It then operates a bit like a board of directors using hearings and investigations to monitor compliance. There is a natural tension with the Executive Branch when Congress is doing its job right.
But Congress only does its job right when its leaders are patriots not showboats. Where are the most effective leaders in Congress? Where are the leaders who are willing to go beyond partisan volleys? And who are the leaders who believe the health of the United States of America is more important than their reelection? I ask these questions of the Republican contingent because the Democrats do not own the government and their criticisms are mostly brushed off as political.
If we have learned nothing in the last month we have learned that Trump and Musk do not want feedback, unless it is positive. We have learned that numbers not issues drive their daily work. We have learned that their immense egos and maniacal styles are in fact dangerous. And I expect when an audit of this saga is completed we will find that the most effective employees are no longer working for our government.
It is time for Republicans who have been elected to high office to show some backbone. I, for one, considered disruption necessary but what we got was chaos. Is this Congress unconcerned that its prerogatives are being canceled or undermined by chaos?
Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.
