EconomicsGovernment

Congress: Smaller, Weaker, Slower

The documentary “Bigger, Stronger, Faster*” (2008), directed by Christopher Bell, is a fascinating study of steroid use among today’s success-demanding athletes, from high school football players to some of our nation’s top professional baseball players and nearly every sport in between. The record-breaking feats of Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire and the tell-all book Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big by Jose Conseco got the attention of Congress. Players were cheating and hurting the youth of America. After watching it, I began to see that Congress is on steroids of a different kind.

Congress held hearings and pontificated on the evils of steroids, even though tobacco products, which kill many more people and contribute to escalating healthcare costs, remain legal. That’s because Congress levies a tax on the noxious weed and rakes in billions of dollars that can be used to buy votes to keep its members in power.

Congress has no business lecturing the sports’ world about performance enhancing supplements when it causes a great deal more harm to all Americans with its thousands of pages of legislation that govern every aspect of our lives. It’s OK to create money out of thin air to “enhance” the economy, but it’s not OK for an athlete to enhance his athletic performance with a substance that only brings harm to himself.

Then Senator Joe Biden is shown in Bell’s documentary giving his opinion on steroid use. He is outraged at the use of performance enhancing means to get ahead, but it didn’t stop him from enhancing his looks with hair transplants to help him appear more youthful to voters.

Furthermore, Congress has been enhancing its powers for more than 200 years. Nearly everything Congress appropriates funds for today has no constitutional support. Like steroid users, members of Congress have all types of reasons why they violate their oath, all for the good of the people and the nation.

One particular scene in the documentary caught my attention. It was Bell’s interview with Democrat Representative Henry A. Waxman of California. If there ever was a clueless politician, it’s Henry Waxman. You’ll notice that the Congressman has no idea what the issues are. You can hear one of his aides — who is off-camera — feeding him answers. Waxman looks stupid.

Congress is about to make a decision about the way it taxes and spends. More than 300 million Americans will be affected by how our representatives vote. Not only will we be affected, but generations to come will be affected. While Congress tinkers with the foolishness of steroid use, it fiddles as America burns.

At least steroids make athletes bigger, stronger, and faster. Congress looks smaller, weaker, and slower every day.

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