Are members of congress as clueless as they act?

Unfortunately today I shut off the radio at work today and decided to listen in on some of the hearings congress was holding today. As they pretended to be shocked over what has been going on all along and they approved of, all I could think about was there is one question that has not been asked.

What is worse about all of this? Is it that we elected these stupid people or this was the best that we could get?

Start with the hearing on our spy department.

Spy chief Clapper: "We've been snooping on our friends for years"
How long? Start with this.

The USA PATRIOT Act: Preserving Life and Liberty

(Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism)

Congress enacted the Patriot Act by overwhelming, bipartisan margins, arming law enforcement with new tools to detect and prevent terrorism: The USA Patriot Act was passed nearly unanimously by the Senate 98-1, and 357-66 in the House, with the support of members from across the political spectrum.

The Act Improves Our Counter-Terrorism Efforts in Several Significant Ways:

1. The Patriot Act allows investigators to use the tools that were already available to investigate organized crime and drug trafficking. Many of the tools the Act provides to law enforcement to fight terrorism have been used for decades to fight organized crime and drug dealers, and have been reviewed and approved by the courts. As Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) explained during the floor debate about the Act, "the FBI could get a wiretap to investigate the mafia, but they could not get one to investigate terrorists. To put it bluntly, that was crazy! What's good for the mob should be good for terrorists." (Cong. Rec., 10/25/01)

If they didn't know what was going on then they must not know where the money is going since it is their job to pay for all of this.

Then there was the hearing, yet another one, on Affordable Care Act. The mess with the computer systems could have been fixed long before this if they were holding hearings on how to fix it instead of holding votes on how to kill it.

"We're sorry and we'll fix website, health officials promise," but like anything else, congress was supposed to be watching what was going on since again, they control the money.

Reminder that they voted against it then proved they didn't care what we wanted or needed.

House Republicans, who did not vote to pass the 2010 Affordable Care Act and who have voted more than 40 times to repeal it, say they won't stop trying. "There is no way to fix this monstrosity, said House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). "We want to repeal Obamacare and replace it with patient-centered health care."

But this is nothing new out of them.

How did we go from them doing their jobs so that they only had to hold hearings on how to fix stuff instead of holding hearings on what they screwed up in the first place?