Kids Love Barney in the Morning!

Even before my official office hours began on Friday, I was already heading over to a Committee Room down on the third floor. The room wasn't busy yet and I wound up being able to sit next to a friend that I went to high school with (and played baseball together with) who is interning for a Congressional office representing Michigan. My friend and my fellow intern from Congressman Moore's office and me were all together in the Committee Room, sitting less than 5 feet away from a podium that Representative Barney Frank would be addressing us during a Congressional Intern Semimar Series event in about 40 minutes.

Congressman Frank spent most of his time talking about partisanship, a topic that I had chosen for one of my final high school government projects just this Spring. He discussed a view that has become increasing unpopular. He is one of the few remaining Congressman that will openly say that partisanship is good, it can even get things accomplished. Of course he was speaking in regards to how divided Republicans and Democrats are on the current health care debate, but more importantly how each party has become so divided ideology within their own respective camps. In so many words the Congressman was calling out to the Democrats to get it together and get a health bill passed.

He also spoke a bit about his own personal story of what his reasoning was for going into politics instead of his initial goal of becoming an academician. He put his comments into a context of our interests, of how to decide what the right career path is for oneself. The reason, if you're wondering, is that he believed that he has too short of an attention span to succeed in an academic position. He gave an example. If you give him an issue to consider for 20 minutes then have a debate, he will have a great advantage. If you give him 2 weeks, he will be at a disadvantage because after a day or so, he would get bored, be distracted and move onto another issue. Also, while talking about debate, Congressman Frank stressed that it is extremely important to truly discuss the substance within bills and proposed policies. He emphasized that one of the bad things about the current political climate was when Members just throw around absurd claims that delay or create indecision because of false statements.

The last words from the discussion that Representative Frank had that I want to bring up was about the military. While it eludes me as to whether or not the Congressman directly linked the next statement to the F22s or not, it certainly is a strong example. The Congressman pointed out the fallacies that come when a country starts shifts from funding a program such as the military as a means to reach the end goal of protection, to the funding of the military being the end. This means that when the only reason to fund a program or military further is to just provide for that part of the government (or in this case, the business sector), then the money is being wastefully spent for an absent cause.

The rest of the day was overshadowed by having had the chance to participate in this intriguing seminar and Q/A, but let me assure that that once again, the staff dealt with a high volume of phone calls concerning the growing debate around health care.