Gary Franks: Congress — Where political robots reside

Can’t wait till the Republican members of Congress are told at their next town hall meeting that in the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” was a provision to defund Congress — House and Senate. Surprise.

Two things are not true here. First, Republicans are not going to have a town hall meeting anytime soon and second, defunding Congress was not in the Big Beautiful Bill. But in the rush to pass it, not one single member of the House of Representatives read the entire bill as changed by the Senate, so it could have been.

Just imagine if you ran your business or organization like that.

I do not have any objection with a newly elected president — Democratic or Republican — implementing their vision for America, but I do take issue with placing more debt on the shoulders of future generations. It makes Republicans no better than the Democrats.

When senators had a chance, Democrats and Republicans blocked Maine Sen. Susan Collins’s amendment that would have attempted to raise taxes on the super-rich to help legitimately pay for the bill.

Looking at the substance of my false claim above — defunding Congress being in the bill — many would say, especially President Donald Trump, that Congress is useless unless it has to fulfill some constitutional role. But members of Congress today are merely rubber stamps. Trump can do it all, I say facetiously.

So Congress has become the first U.S. institution that really resembles a collection of robots. I will not concede that they have artificial intelligence, as the word “intelligence” may be overrated.

If the House, Senate, and White House are all controlled by the same party, then we can defund Congress. No critical votes that would allow for a sign of bipartisanship are needed. A declaration of war on a country is not really needed, and even if it were, they, the robots, would do what robots do. There is no reigning in the White House when the president overreaches as impeachments are impossible.

Trump was not the first to have robots in Congress. Nearly two decades before him, former President Barack Obama passed a bill that changed health care in a partisan manner, giving millions health care insurance. And Trump, the anti-Obama that he is, will have people fall off the rolls of Medicaid — and yes, in the millions. So, I guess we are almost back to square one. The Democratic robots actually said, “We have to pass the bill so we can find out what is in it.”

There must be a reason why we are spending billions of dollars to elect members of the House and Senate, while paying them and their staffs, along with the cost of posh office space, all to do something that AI or robots could easily do. In fact, partisan politics is beneath AI. No thinking or calculation is needed. If Democrats have more votes, they do what their president wants and if Republicans have more votes in Congress, the Republican president does whatever he wants.

We do have the media to contend with. They too are predictable. They can be a little robotic as well. Whether the narrative comes from the right or the left, you can easily predict it.

But we do need the theater, the drama. Even when all is said and done, they do what can easily be predicted every time.

After all, how many GOP senators and House members went to the media to proclaim that they could not support the BBB “in its present form”? Well, the form did not change much but the integrity of those once proud members did. They “bent the knee,” accepting a promise, any promise, anything that they could hang their hat on as a talking point. You know, like this: “I voted for the bill, but we will be having a Reconciliation II to address my concerns down the road.” Yeah, right after the sale of the Brooklyn Bridge.

So, we have robots in the federal government. What do we do?

We must turn to the state governments. The Constitution truly wanted the control and power of Congress to be limited. Trump loves wars and tariffs, which would still be in play for the executive branch.

The Trump administration also seeks to eliminate the Department of Education, returning most of its functions to the states. It has the same goal for FEMA. The Supreme Court has already turned abortion rights over to the states. Supplemental Nutrition Allowance Programs (SNAP) to a degree is being returned to the states with other social safety net programs soon to follow. Federal civil rights laws, when they pertain to protecting minorities, can only be addressed at the state level, as the federal government has abdicated its responsibility by scraping enforcement and cutting funding.

Let us remember that each state has a constitution. State governments are not allowed to overspend — to run a deficit like the federal government has been doing for a quarter of a century. And that is a good thing.

Trump would no longer be able to threaten states and cities with the withdrawal of federal funds if the states restructured their revenue producing means so that they no longer need federal funding.

Once upon a time unfunded mandates were taboo. Today, federal government mandates are merely a shift with part of the funding model as a result of the Big Beautiful Bill.

In a twisted way we could continue to lower the federal tax rate while having states increase their means of collecting revenue. It could be a “backdoor” way of balancing the federal budget. Via their constitutions, the states will be forced to balance their budgets.

The federal budget deficits and growing national debt have been caused and made worse by both Democrats and Republicans.

It takes courage not to be a political robot these days. It takes a willingness to sacrifice one’s career if necessary to do the right thing. Heck, if more joined the ranks for the courageous, we would see the re-birth of moderates or else we may need a third political party, as Elon Musk has suggested.

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Gary Franks served three terms as a congressman from Connecticut's 5th District. He was the first Black conservative elected to Congress and first Black Republican elected to the House in nearly 60 years. Host: Podcast "We Speak Frankly." garyfranksphilanthropy.org.