Opposing view on role of Congress

I completely disagree with the letter posted Nov. 13 in the Fencepost from Charles Peraino of Cary on “We don't need a parent government.”

His primary message is that “in a democratic republic ... the voters elect individuals to represent their attitudes and opinions. That means that those in government should do what is popular, not what they think is best.”

I believe he misses the mark completely. In a representative democracy, which is what the United States is, we elect representatives who will use their judgment in balancing what the voters want with what is the best solution for the country as a whole.

If all we wanted was for representatives to do what was popular, we would not need a Congress all we would need to do is take public opinion polls on every issue and follow the result. The point is that we cannot fit 300 million people into Congress, so we elect 512 individuals for the House and 100 for the Senate who will be informed, use sound judgment, and do their best for the rest of us.

Doing what is popular is not always the best solution. If all we did was to do what was popular, we would never take the actions that now need to be taken to reduce the federal deficit because they will be painful. We would never raise the age for full coverage under Social Security to 68 or 69, which should be done but which would never be popular enough to be implemented. We would never make the necessary cuts in defense that need to be made but are not necessarily popular.

In short, we would never make the tough choices that now need to be made but are not necessarily popular.

The point is that we elect those whom we think will do the best job in using sound judgment to represent us. If we don't like the results, we vote them out two years later in Congress, for example, as we did many times in the 2010 election.

Gary Koca

Pingree Grove