Money wasted
Regarding “Mayorkas visits Texas border ahead of historic GOP impeachment proceedings,” (Jan. 8): Members of the U.S. House of Representatives are elected for a term of two years. The first half of that term is complete for the current members. Of the 34 pieces of legislation that were adopted, the majority of those legislative actions can be characterized as trivial. I believe those 34 items could all easily have been completed in two weeks by any group of competent and dedicated individuals, especially if they were briefed in advance of the meetings by the large staff each representative maintains.
Only two pieces of legislation had national importance. They approved a short-term increase to the debt ceiling and approved the military spending budget.
In my opinion, every Congress before this one in the last 50 years has done between 10 and 30 times as much real work. This year, taxpayers paid $147 million to enable the Republican majority in the House to ignore the work of government and conduct an amateur performance of political theater.
In our own lives we all know exactly what would happen to an employee who delivered only 5% of the work commonly achieved by everyone holding the same position during the prior 50 years. Especially when that 5% was only the easy things. Essentially all the important work — for example, immigration reform — was left undone. We need a Congress that successfully manages our government for the benefit of the nation. Houston has great professional theater for anyone who wants to be entertained.
Raymond Floyd, Houston
Regarding “Think Turner’s tenure was positive? You must live in La La Land. (Opinion),” (Jan. 10): If you are wondering where the money for pothole repair was spent, come drive through the Heights. You can drive down 11th Street and marvel at the unused bike lanes, but be careful or you might hit the high curbs that separate the lanes from the road. Unfortunately you can no longer sit along Heights Boulevard and enjoy the simple pleasure of watching people wreck their cars while hitting randomly placed traffic islands. They were removed, likely costing us even more money.
Molly Sullivan, Houston