Today, Toyota follows in the footsteps of many major corporations in the past couple years. Its executives have been called to Capitol Hill to account for the way they run their business.

Despite all of the gridlock that we’ve been hearing about in Washington, such hearings are a model of bipartisanship. It seems like any time there is an opportunity to dig into someone else’s business, Congress is ready to work together. After all, calling executives in and “holding them accountable” in a public forum is a great way to create the illusion that Congress is helping the American people. And, while we are all glued to our televisions listening to the latest round of reprimands and arm-chair management, perhaps we’ll forget the nation’s business which continues to flounder.

But what makes Congress believe that they are competent and qualified to judge any one’s business? After all, if any executive ran his or her organization with the level of dysfunction, lack of regard for customers, self-interest, and lack of results as is currently displayed by our government officials, not only would they be immediately booted out by their shareholders, they too would be called in for a hearing.

So, why are there no hearings for the government? Many would rightly argue that the government is accountable to the people and their “hearing” comes each election cycle. Yet, that doesn’t happen for many reasons. So perhaps the entire system is broken in that our elected officials don’t do their job of effectively running our country and our citizens certainly are not doing their job of holding those officials accountable.

So, I think it’s time for a new Contract with America – one that creates better focus and accountability for members of Congress and hopefully begins to break down some of the barriers of representative democracy.

Here are my recommendations:

1. Each year Congress will publicly lay out a legislative agenda with specific laws, and policies that will be established in the coming year. If a certain percentage of those goals are not met within that year, any member of Congress who is up for election in that year cannot run.
2. Congress and the President will, on a quarterly basis, participate in public hearings (similar to corporate analyst calls) where they will have to explain or defend their current progress against their goals. The agenda, questions and focus of these meetings will be driven by the representatives of the public who are running the hearings so that they are focused on what the people want to know and not on what the politicians want to spin.
3. Congress, as an entity and as individuals, must abide by the same laws that they pass for the rest of the country. They cannot exclude themselves (or their states) from legislation or policies to which they will hold the rest of the American people.
4. Congressional operating budgets will be indexed against comparable public and private sector budgets. If the rest of the country has to cut to run its business, so will Congress.
5. Congressional pay will be tied to a balanced scorecard of the nation’s prosperity in areas such as GDP growth, employment, health and mortality, education, etc.
6. Congress will refrain from holding hearings on any other business, industry, or organization until, as an entity, it demonstrates that it can run its own business in a competent, sustainable manner.
   

Perhaps if Congress started having to operate in the same manner as the rest of us, they might have an easier time getting in touch with the needs of Americans.