Kansas and Missouri voters aren’t politicians’ foot soldiers. We need action | Opinion
Our 119th U.S. Congress has not met its responsibilities to over 340 million constituents. After a year of the current administration, Congress has stumbled through a lengthy shutdown and a partial one, taken every scheduled recess and still failed to deliver a formal budget. Instead, it keeps the government on life support with one short-term “continuing resolution” after another.
We have no comprehensive immigration policy, even though most Americans want one. Agents in the expanded Immigration and Customs Enforcement are poorly trained and ill-disciplined. The saga of the Epstein files remains a national disgrace. In its One Big Beautiful Bill, Congress chose policies that favored the very wealthy and large corporations over the middle class, rural communities, veterans and families relying on the Affordable Care Act. Its failure to exercise serious oversight has produced chaos and confusion.
If you are a resident of Kansas or Missouri, you have been negatively impacted by Congress’ dereliction of duty. You don’t need a think tank report to tell you that shutdowns, uncertainty and rising costs hit people like us first.
Our republic was designed to help citizens build better lives. The preamble to the Constitution reads like a mission statement: “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” The Constitution lays out three branches — legislative, executive and judicial — and a system of checks and balances. Article I make clear that overseeing the executive branch is a core responsibility of Congress. We must demand that this Congress execute its oversight mission.
Congress’ negligence began early with DOGE, the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency. Congress never insisted on a clear plan with agreed-upon goals. Workers were fired in large numbers — including thousands of veterans and long-serving civil servants — without a coherent strategy. Today, the federal government is spending more money, not less, to deliver the same or worse service. A Congress doing its job would have demanded a plan with goals. Instead, the people who pay the price are the very folks we rely on: veterans, line workers and public servants who keep the machinery running.
Public health is another area where inaction has put us at risk. Our national security depends on a healthy population — both to serve in uniform and to work in the factories, farms and businesses that supply our military. When Congress quickly confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services and then watched him degrade the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, both our public health and our national security suffered. Today, measles and the flu are spreading widely. Millions face the loss of health care because of rising ACA costs and the closure of rural hospitals.
When a rural hospital closes, it is not a statistic. It is a pregnant mother driving an extra hour, a veteran waiting longer for care, a nurse or lab tech forced to move to a different town. Congress has still not produced a plan to stabilize health care for ordinary Americans.
Contact your members of Congress
The president campaigned heavily on making everyday life more affordable. Congress has not held him to that. Prices for nearly everything are higher, while wages are lagging. Two-thirds of Americans believe the economy is getting worse. That burden falls hardest on people who do not have lobbyists in Washington.
Sadly, we cannot recall all 100 senators and 435 representatives. But we are not powerless. Whether you are Republican, Democrat or independent, most of us in the Midwest think of ourselves first as people who look out for one another — neighbors, parents, veterans, farmers, small business owners, union members and churchgoers — not as foot soldiers in some ideological party war.
Our piece of the congressional pie is our respective U.S. representatives and senators. We all need to flood their offices with phone calls, letters and email. Ask them where they stand on meaningful oversight of the executive branch. What will they do to stabilize health care, keep rural hospitals open and bring down costs of essentials? How will they protect ordinary people when tariffs and shutdowns hit our farms, military bases and small towns? Insist that they hold open town halls to get our views.
Many of our federal officials had ample time to show us their values. If they shrug at shutdowns, the erosion of public health infrastructure and rising prices, we don’t need them. Most elected federal officials are up for vote in the midterms this November or in the 2028 general election. If they refuse to execute their oversight, we need to replace them with others who will.
Norman Greczyn is a retired U.S. Army colonel who served in Operation Desert Storm. He lives in Leavenworth.