Rithmomachia

I think Congress as an entire group should be impeached and removed from office.  Both parties, all members.  The GOP controls the House, they would lose that.  The Dems control the Senate, they lose that too.  This is not a partisan issue - it is a (lack of) competence issue.

The entire 'budget' dance since summer 2011 - the deal, the commission, sequestration - is all patently unconstitutional.

CONGRESS (you know, the people who control the purse strings) made a deal to
- set a small commission who would agree what would be cut.  OK, it's a farcically stupid idea with today's politicians but lets assume that it worked - Congress is VOLUNTARILY giving up its control as a body to a smaller body, selected not elected.
- if this commission couldn't decide, automatic broad cuts would take place.  Again, they are not fulfilling their jobs, they are simply mandating a mechanism that obviates their role entirely.

Sequestration is not "them doing their jobs, just badly" - it's not even that.  It is like your gardener (who has allowed your garden to become grossly overgrown with weeds) saying, "I really don't want to go through the hard, tedious, and painful work of sorting out the good plants from the bad, so I'm just going to cut EVERYTHING 6"."
From a gardener, it would be absolute incompetence.
From Congress, this should be criminal.


I grant that calling it unconstitutional may be overstepping.

The Constitution states that "...The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;..."  Conceded, it does not assert a method.

But if Congress took to paying our budget by pulling bingo balls and randomly allocating funds, I suspect we seek some recourse to impeach them for failing to conscientiously exercise the duty assigned to them.  What they are doing now is no better (and frankly, no more effective).

We need to punish incompetence in our politicians, not re-elect 90%.