Summary: WHAT IF… We Required More of Congress?
What if the 535 people who hold the power of the purse and the pen actually worked for us instead of themselves?
Most of us are disgusted, and the reasons are not hard to find. Members grow wealthy on a public salary. Congress shuts the government down and still collects a paycheck. Thousand-page bills pass without being read. The debts we are handing our children now run into the trillions.
In America, for now, what citizens allowed, citizens can reverse. This happened on our watch, which means it is ours to fix.
That is what Simple Liberty is: Everyday commoners collaborating across party lines to solve America’s biggest problems. Citizens, not politicians or pundits. We work toward the common good of all Americans.
The question is not “Who do we blame?” but “What if?”
Here are seven common-sense standards for every American:
#1 - What if character actually mattered?
What if proven good character became the first requirement for every member of Congress, ahead of party, money, and connections? Members would divest from conflicting business interests before taking office, and insider trading on the laws they write would be prosecuted rather than tolerated. Madison, Adams, and Franklin each treated character in office as the precondition of the republic itself.
#2 - What if we eliminated corruption in Congress?
If a law applies to ordinary Americans, it should apply to Congress: Healthcare, taxes, retirement, and legal accountability alike, with no carve-outs. What if any member convicted of a felony was removed, any member facing charges was placed on unpaid leave pending trial, and every elected official was audited every year? Those are ordinary conditions of employment everywhere else.
#3 - What if no balanced budget meant no pay?
In the fall of 2025, Congress failed its most basic job and triggered the longest shutdown in modern history, 43 days, while members kept collecting their salaries. Nothing in the Constitution prevents Congress from withholding its own pay during a shutdown and until the budget is balanced. Fiscal responsibility is a matter of stewardship rather than party. Handing our children trillions in debt they never approved is generational theft.
#4 - What if we right-sized and refocused Congress?
The ruling class wants to expand the House, with some proposals reaching 700, 1,000, or more. Consider the opposite. A leaner House of 250 members, with a minimum of two per state, would force collaboration and accountability. What if House terms ran four years instead of two, freeing members from the permanent campaign? What if Congress met in focused sessions that send members home to live among the people they represent? What if gerrymandering ended, with district maps following full adjoining counties, so that representatives must earn their seats?
#5 - What if Congress reclaimed the power to make our laws?
Article I vests all lawmaking power in Congress, yet most of the binding laws Americans must obey are written by unelected employees inside federal agencies rather than by the representatives we elect. What if no regulation could carry the force of law until Congress itself debated and passed it, and agencies returned to enforcing the laws Congress writes rather than inventing their own? Lawmaking belongs to the representatives we can vote out, not to the bureaucracy we cannot.
#6 - What if each member could introduce just two bills a year?
In a single recent two-year Congress, members introduced more than 19,000 bills, increasingly buried in thousand-page omnibus packages few read before voting. What if each member could author just two original bills per year, every new bill had to identify five existing laws to repeal, and earmarks ended entirely? Congress would write fewer laws, and Americans could read them.
#7 - What if government service meant compensation comparable to citizens?
A servant should not live better than the household they serve. What if every elected official paid the identical taxes you and I pay, with no loopholes, and their time off, benefits, and pensions were brought in line with the citizens they serve, including the same Social Security and Medicare the rest of us rely on? Public service can be honored without being made profitable.
The Mountain Ahead
These standards are a mountain to climb. Citizens have reformed our government before - the 17th Amendment won us the direct election of senators, the 22nd checked presidential power - peacefully and constitutionally. It can be done again - if we, the citizens, demand it and show up.
We decide who fills all 535 seats.
The largest bloc in America is not the left or the right. It is the people who stayed home. In 2024, roughly 89 million eligible Americans did not vote - more than voted for either candidate. The most powerful force in the country sat on the sidelines, convinced their voice did not matter. They were mistaken.
Our elections are decided at the razor’s edge. Control of Congress can turn on a few thousand votes across a handful of districts. In race after race, the citizens who stayed home outnumbered the margin many times over. The non-voters don’t just sit those contests out - they could decide every one of them.
Hear this clearly: The answer is not violence, and it is not a civil war. It is older, harder, and far stronger: We engage - neighbor to neighbor, voter and non-voter alike - with truth, hope, integrity, and transparency.
Congress is our branch - built to represent us, and to make the laws we all must live under. Reclaim it, and we reclaim our voice in our own government. The cost is small - a little of our time, our attention, our care.
American citizens must now show up as responsible stewards of our freedom and close the door in tyranny’s face.
We can do this.
This completes our seven questions for Congress - the Legislative branch that makes our laws. Next come seven more, for the Judicial branch - the courts meant to interpret the law, not make it. Each branch has lost its way. Each can be restored - by us.
P.S.
The only hope for America is to restore our covenant to common values, our federal government’s wise three-branch design, and the founding solutions we have abandoned or allowed to be corrupted. Not socialism, communism, a dictatorship, or a monarchy.
A republic where there are true equal rights for all.
Renewal requires us to strengthen our character, protect our rights, and gratefully steward the people’s government for the common good.
Simple Liberty unites everyday Americans to research the facts behind our nation’s biggest problems and develop solutions for the common good - because politicians and billionaires won’t do it for us.