Halloween at the Hotel Congress

It’s true, there will soon be ghosts and ghouls at the Hotel Congress Halloween party, but the D.C. Metro can’t get you there. The Hotel Congress is actually in Tucson, Ariz., not in Washington. In fact, Halloween is so important at the Hotel Congress, they will celebrate it for the entire Halloweek.

{mosads}However, back in Washington, our Congress was seemingly concerned that they would miss out on the fun, so last year a popularity poll was conducted by the Public Policy Polling Group, and the results were truly interesting. In terms of popularity, witches beat Congress by 14 points, and zombies won by 6. In the race to the bottom, Congress is now polling (by RCP) at an 80.2 percent disapproval rate. In fact, witches and zombies are much more popular than Congress!

American pop culture, never failing to tune into the real mindset of the country, has latched on to the zombie phenomenon, and the proof is AMC’s airing this month of their show “The Walking Dead,” which actually reached a bigger audience than the omnipresent Sunday night football game. Americans just love a good story, and as they watch these endless and inane local TV commercials promoting one (soon-to-be-elected) public official over another, they begin to draw a fuzzy line between what’s going on in the real world and their fictional TV world. After all, zombies and members of the 113th Congress have a lot in common. Both are seemingly incapable of making a decision and both seem to be walking slowly in a time warp, while those around them are trying to deal with real life and pay their bills.

Americans got hooked on zombies with the airing of the 1968 movie “Night of the Living Dead.” The image of a zombie was that of an undead human, living in an animated state, incapable of making a decision (sound familiar?). The Library of Congress (just to make this more official) has preserved “Night of the Living Dead” in the National Film Registry, and they have marked it as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

It is also interesting to note that this same Library of Congress recently announced (through their American Folklife Center) that they are searching for Halloween pictures of Americans dressed up as zombies. Hard to imagine why they are compelled to do this on a national level, when all they have to do was look outside their own window.

Whatever the case, Congress was probably concerned that legislatively, all this talk about mindless people doing nothing would be taken in vain so, in order to be proven worthy, they actually passed a cemetery law in this 113th Congress, probably to show that they could be proactive. I draw your attention to S. 1471, the Respect for National Cemeteries Act, with allows “appropriate federal officials” to disinter the remains of people buried in national cemeteries if they committed (but were not convicted) of a crime. The legislation also allows for the human remains to be handed over to an “appropriate” government official for reburial, if next of kin are not available to handle the task. One could easily imagine that the same group that scheduled the forever-extended veterans’ physician appointments would be handling this situation as well. Honestly, the remains of the deceased could end up just about anywhere!

So, you just have to ask yourself, have we gone insane?

There’s an old saying that people hate Congress, but love their congressman.

Our fourth president, James Madison, stated it correctly. “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.”

Directing our attention to the U.S. trade community of today, we all enjoy the people that we work with, but we get so frustrated when they take no action. It’s one thing to not move forward on new trade initiatives, but it’s totally another situation when they let existing bills expire. One finds it hard to imagine why a worthy trade bill like GSP (Generalized System of Preferences), which has been in existence since 1974, was allowed to terminate in July 2013; or why AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act) isn’t renewed as yet, when it expires next year and truly needs to be reactivated so that people can continue to invest in Africa without fear of cancellation. The list of non-renewals and inaction by Congress just goes on and on, as does the wait and the pain that is thrust upon Americans trying to do business with their government.

As Halloweek begins to descend on the Hotel Congress in Tucson and Washington prepares for a new Congress, our Halloween thoughts turn to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” — when Vincent Price read the enduring rap:

“The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grisly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom”

Helfenbein is chairman of the board of the American Apparel and Footwear Association. He is a strong advocate for a robust U.S. trade agenda and lectures frequently on the subjects of supply chain and international trade.