No. A banker? No, but there are two former bank tellers in the 110th Congress. What are the occupations of the people who got elected to the House or the Senate?
Why ask a question like that? Because a "tornado of economic discontent is buffeting the nation." (1) We learned today: A record 90 percent in this ABC News/Washington Post poll say the country’s on the wrong track, 88 percent are worried about the economy’s direction and just 44 percent are confident they’ll have enough money on which to retire.(2)
Who are the people to fix the economy? In the 110th Congress, law is the common profession of Senators, followed by public service or politics; for Representatives, public service or politics is first, followed by business and law.(3)
Remember -- Congress is composed of 540 individuals from the 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa. Here is a breakdown of some 85 former occupations.
23 health care
15 law-enforcement
8 plant worker
6 ministers
6 radio-television
5 accountants
4 musicians
3 carpenters
3 chemists
3 physicists
1 astronaut
1 biomedical engineer
1 microbiologist
1 corporate pilot
1 mortician
1 fruit orchard worker
1 organic farmer
1 riverboat captain
1 taxicab driver
I was surprised that there are no mathematicians, traditional engineers (civil, chemical, mechanical, nuclear, aeronautical), geologists, computer specialists, philosophers, architects, astronomers, and, of course, economists. Here is a distribution of state legislators, veterans, women, and scholars in the House or the Senate. I included women for comparison.
House/Senate 440/100
State Legislators 233/39
Veterans 99/28
Women 74/16
Rhodes Scholars 3/3
Fulbright Scholars 3/0
Marshall Scholar 1/0
There are more veterans than women in the 110th Congress. Education profile is given below for the House and the Senate.
Education - House/Senate
BA or BS 401/97
MA or MS 123/19
PhD 22/0
MD 13/4
Law 179/57
Military Academy 3/1
Naval Academy 0/2
Airforce Academy 1/0
There are no PhDs in the Senate but three Academy graduates. Law holds 41 and 57 percent in the House and the Senate, respectively. Is the next Congress, the 111th, slated to be similar?
If you are one of the 90 percent saying the country is on the wrong track, how about electing people this time to bring about what you desire? What are the requirements in a candidate to fix the economy, health care, energy, etc? Shouldn't their education or occupations be highlighted in a review of their credentials? Let me hear from you here.
(1) http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Politics/story?id=6017487&page=1
(2) http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/1076a3TheMarket.pdf
(3) http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RS22555.pdf
