House Committees and Appropriate Technological Uses, Research Paper Example

Recent technological advances in governing systems and the use of techno politics should allow the overhaul of the House of Representatives and all of its subcommittees. Most of these subcommittees are doing duplicated functions that could be handled by other professional institutions in a more effective manner. Apart from aspects of professionalism, House of Representative committees consume significant tax money in the name of committee salaries and allowances (Connor 53). In most times, decisions made by these committees do not even yield the desired effect at state and federal levels. As said earlier, most of these committees perform duplicated functions in administering their committee mandates. In this regard, government authorities and other concerned parties could start deliberating on ways through which these committees could be replaced. In this regard, non partisan institutions serve as the best elements that can perform functions similar to those done by house committees.

The House committees and subcommittee usually conducts processes relating to decision making through objective and informed deliberations. On the other hand, the non-partisan groups perform duties synonymous to the house committees. Therefore, committees should consider outsourcing some duties while at the same time adopting appropriate technologies that will enhance reliability and accuracy of their processes. In this case, I believe that with adoption of appropriate technological tools, house committees and non-partisan groups can deliver better services. With existence of numerous committees and subcommittees, House of Representatives could maintain authority over sensitive committees while delegating non-sensitive responsibilities to non-partisan groups (Connor 28). In this case, we acknowledge that despite presence of technological tools, some duties of committee services remains suitably for the house. For example, such duties performed by bodies like the House Committee on Foreign Affairs cannot be trusted on independent non-partisan organizations.

One committee, which needs to remain in place, is House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. This committee could be replaced by services offered by the non-partisan Association of Community Organizations for Reform. Substitution of the House committee by ACORN is inappropriate because of the nature of task performed by the committee. Matters of government reforms affect all citizens. Therefore, deliberative processes relating to government reforms have to be handled by a body representative of the entire national population (Connor 91). Members constituting ACORN may not serve the purpose of representing interest of the entire population. In order to ensure effective delivery of services by the committee, appropriate technology could be used in decision-making process. This could involve the use of media and statistical tools in generating and communicating public interest from different societies. In addition, further generation of data could be effected using internet and email survey techniques. Respondents could spend few minutes of their time answering questions contained in the mailed questionnaires. These statistics could help the committee in making informed decisions based on the prevailing social, economic, and political perspective of citizens.

The House Committee on Education and Workforce could delegate their duties to the National Coalition for Technology in Education Training. This non-partisan group is more likely to perform the committee duties in an effective manner because they have all the time and resources, which the house committee lacks. In the process of performing mandated duties, these committees could miss out important aspects and lack appropriate information. Therefore, this body could handle elements of education and training efficiently. The national coalition can generate requisite statistics meant to indicate prevailing labor trends within the nation (Bernan 45). In so doing, they can devise mechanisms, with the help of federal allocation of funds, to implement strategies meant to elicit the required response in the job market. Appropriate technological systems may include the use of Correlation Coefficient software to simulate statistical relationships between variables of education and workforce.

The house committee on appropriation performs similar functions to those performed by The House Fiscal Agency. This agency serves the purpose of helping the house committee and its numerous sub-committees in developing rational and proportional appropriation of state and federal funds. It is usually occupied with preparation, reporting, and publications of financial reports (Bernan 28). In addition, the agency performs duties including revenue and forecasts, bill analyses and budget briefings, among other fiscal related duties. The House of Representatives could utilize services used by this agency in performing all fiscal activities. The agency has professional expertise and appropriate technology to ensure timely and efficient analyses and production of fiscal statements. Examples of technologies used include MATLAB and Microsoft Project. This software proves effective in simulation and production of statistical and revenue related reports. With such advancement in technology, the House committee on appropriation could outsource its functions to house fiscal agency non-partisan body to ensure professionalism.

On the other hand, House Committee in ethics performs similar functions to those mandated on the Office of Congressional Ethics. Typical functions by this committee include review and decisions relating to unethical conduct of house members. The office of congressional ethics can perform these activities in an effective manner using appropriate technology (Connor 17). An example of technology suitable for the group is the use of polygraph in establishing facts and truth. In order to appreciate the value and benefits accompanied by the use of technology, we will appraise current and future advances that could accompany the use of polygraph machines. This extrapolation will serve the purpose of indicating how and why the other committees could emulate the use of technology in improving and delegating their mandates.

With respect to political technology, government should consider embracing technology within the nation’s economic and social environments. Use of these technologies allows efficient flow of information from one place to another. These information dynamics facilitate mobilization of capital and resources within the society (Sumner 40). In the long run, social and economic aspects of the society will eventually improve. In this case, government institutions, like the House of Representatives should start acknowledging the role played by technologically advanced companies within the society. Some of the gains made include improvisation of social amenities and generation of wealth. Management systems are also improved through the use of these technologies. In this context, House of Representatives should willingly accept redundancy of their services whenever better institutions with appropriate technologies, could execute committee mandated in an economically optimal manner (Sneider 28).

The current state of affairs discourages employment of technology and its benefits in governance. In this case, some committees and government institutions continue exerting forceless efforts in trying to create and implement modern strategies in social and political management. The numerous house committees use substantial recourses in meetings. The outcome of their meetings will not serve the purpose of addressing the dynamic environments experienced by US citizens (Connor 63). The best way of addressing technological advancements is to encourage integration into political systems. Expensive institutions like congress houses and committees could effectively be replaced by the use of small bodies armed with suitable technological tools.

The best way to address these pressures exerted by redundant and expensive institutions is to replace them totally. This could be implemented through techno politics. Non partisan institutions like Office of Congressional ethics can be left to deal with ethical members of government institutions (Sneider 56). Instead of constituting a twenty-bench team of subcommittee members to review ethical conduct of congress members, the office dealing with ethics could employ the use of polygraphs in conducting objective evaluations of ethical levels displayed by state officials. This will allow resources that could have been used by the house subcommittee on ethics to be channeled to more productive causes.

What Technology Wants

Now, we have acknowledged existence of alternative technological tools that enables effective and inexpensive execution of professional services. Within federal and even state institutions, adoption of these technologies can enhance efficient and timely service delivery to the public. Government institutions needs to become technologically wise and starts embracing the positive aspects resulting from constructive use of technology in service delivery. In actual practice, numerous technological tools that can facilitate effective service delivery in government are lying idle in the market. In this context, technology needs attention and recognition from government officers occupied in their respective duties.

Works Cited

Bernan, Press. Insider’s Guide ton Key Committee Staff of the U.S Congress 2012. New York: Cengage Learning Publish, 2012. Print.

Connor, Carol. Congressional Ethics: Getting to the Truth through a Nonpartisan Commission of Inquiry. Indianapolis: Purdue University Press, 2009. Print.

Sneider, Neam. House of Representatives of the United States. New York: Nova Publishers, 2011. Print.

Sumner, Jacob. Intersection between Politics and Technology. Pittsburgh: SAGE Publishers, 2009. Print.