600,000 back Obama budget to sway Congress

The power of lobbyists was put to the test today when a group called Organizing for America delivered over 600,000 signatures to individual members of Congress in support of the budget proposal. Like we talked about in class today, I am not sure this is the most effective way to reach out to Congress because it just creates a lot of frustration in the office for people who have to input the information into the constituent database rather than actually making a true difference in swaying the opinion of the Representative. I know that it causes a lot of commotion when caused by calls, emails, and letters that come in from large groups like MoveOn for the office environment. Obviously a petition such as this does not demonstrate a true demographic of the district considering that we have 300 million citizens living in this country. Like Senator Bayh was talking about today it is nice to see people trying to make a positive difference in the world, but I am just not sure this is the most impactful way to go about achieving the goals they hope to see accomplished. The budget contains a lot of spending on numerous issues and in all honesty I think it would be best to at least let each Party come to the table with ideas before anything is put together for debate on the floor. Yes, Democrats probably would have to give up a few concessions to generate larger support, but unless they see ruling as the Responsible Party Model suggests it may be worth doing for the betterment of the country's future.