Clean and Simple.

The current congressional approval rating is 16%.


It is important to know just how pathetic this is.  In our school system an average grade of “C” is 70%.  A failing grade of “F” is below 60%.  Congress has a rating of 16%.  Following the scale of one letter drop per 10%, congress has a grade of “J”.


It is significant to note that congress has never had a passing grade since Gallup started taking this poll in 1974.  The average yearly approval rating is 31% with an all-time high of 56% and a low of 14%.

Actually, the Federal Government has their own Federal Performance Appraisal System.  1 out of 5 is:

How do we change?  How do we grow? What can I do? What are other people doing who think the same way?  Stay tuned for future discussions....................

The GAO (General Accounting Office of the Federal Government) performed a study of Senior Executives and found that only 0.1% had a performance evaluation of 1.  It should be noted that congress was not evaluated as part of the study or by the federal government.   I am using the approval rating of the public from the Gallup Polls.

Unsatisfactory: You can’t produce work worse than this. Your skills are not well matched to the position, and you do not meet minimum expectations. Your work does not contribute to the agency’s goals, you disregard policies and procedures, and often miss deadlines or complete poor work. You have failed to respond in a positive manner to previously offered corrective action.



Another way to put this in perspective is to look at the typical 5 point or 5 star rating which is commonly used today.  An approval rating of 16% is about 1 point or 1 star out of 5.

Let’s look at some job performance review scales based on 1 to 5.  From the University of California at Berkeley:



Level 1 (U): Unsatisfactory

Performance was consistently below expectations in most essential areas of responsibility, and/or reasonable progress toward critical goals was not made. Significant improvement is needed in one or more important areas. A plan to correct performance, including timelines, must be outlined and monitored to measure progress.



Why do we accept this? Why do the republicans and democrats keep nominating such pathetic job performers? Why isn’t the most powerful job in the American government filled by top people who are respected and are constantly receiving A’s and 5 star job reviews?  Instead, congress is filled with people whose job performance is the lowest in the federal government and even society.

First of all, we don’t have much of a choice.  Public approval of both republicans and democrats are consistently low. Vote for a republican – low.  Vote for a democrat – low. Actually, the democrat and republican parties are very similar on most issues including: perpetual overseas wars (the Trump White House admits we are currently fighting 7 wars), perpetual military expansion (the US has 587 overseas military sites in 42 foreign countries according to the Department of Defense 2015 Base Structures Report), tax breaks for businesses including global corporations, and perpetually increasing the public debt, to name a few.  The two parties disagree primarily on abortion and immigration.  Since drama is good TV, the mass media focuses on these two issues and ignores all the others. (Detailed discussions to come). We need new choices in political parties or better values within the existing parties.  [More on this later]


Secondly, the low job performance rating is from the public and based on the assumption that congress represents the voters.  They don't.  Congress works primarily for the large global corporations and banks both figuratively (as discussed above) and literally and are doing a 5 star or "A" rating job on their behalf. Businesses support congress largely through campaign contributions and lobbying. Additionally, many congresspeople and major government employees literally work for major business interests before and after government service.  This is called the "revolving door".  Some people actually work for the government and private interests at the same time. Here is a clip about Henry Kissinger who was proposed to be the chairman of the 9/11 commission, but withdrew after it was exposed that his private consulting firm (Kissinger Associates) at the time had a client or clients named Bin Laden.  See this clip , and this article.

Be aware that the two political parties will never change on their own from representing businesses to representing citizens. To quote Pete Townshend, “Meet the new boss, just the same as the old boss”.  However; new choices are on the horizon, but we must drive the change (as has been done throughout American history). To quote Bob Dylan, “The times they are a-changing.”  To quote Ghandi, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”  To quote John Perkins, “The world is as you Dream it.” and "that in order for life to continue as we know it, we must all change our dream from the one of materialism and domination...to a more spiritual, cooperative, and Earth-honoring one."

CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL RATING (PATHETIC)

Think of customer review ratings of 1, such as those on Yelp, Amazon, or Google.  Would you eat at a 1 star restaurant or a restaurant that received a 1 on a health inspection?  Would you stay at a motel with a 1 star rating?  Would you let a surgeon with a 1 star rating operate on you? Would you buy a car with a 1 star rating for performance?

I work for Uber as a driver.  Each driver is rated by the rider on each trip.  The average driver rating is 4.6 stars out of 5.  If your driver rating falls below 4.6 stars the company will contact you about this and provide further training.  I have to keep my rating above 4.6 stars, but congress can be below 1 star.