Lee Drutman for Cato:

Congressional offices are thus stretched thin. They lack resources to develop and execute policies. What this means is that to get its work done, Congress has to rely significantly on lobbyists representing some very narrow interests, primarily large corporations and business associations who tend to benefit from the status quo. It’s hard to get anything done in Washington if you don’t have significant help from outside lobbyists, anyway. Lobbyists play essential roles in shepherding legislation through — drafting and vetting laws, building coalitions, and ensuring widespread support.11

By my count (looking at disbursement data), the Senate spent $490 million on compensation, and the House spends $876 million, a total of $1.37 billion, in 2013. If this seems like a lot of money, consider that it is 0.03% of the total federal budget of $3.6 trillion. It is also less than half of the $3.24 billion spent on direct lobbying in 2013 (which itself is probably less than half of the money actually spent on lobbying). Since the Republicans took control of the House in January 2011, they’ve cut committee staffs by 20 percent. Congress is being run on the cheap.

Here’s what I would do with my wave of the magic wand. I would triple the amount the Congress spends on staff (keeping it still at just under 0.1% of the total federal budget). I’d also concentrate that spending in the policy committees. I’d give those committees the resources to be leading institutions for expertise on the issues on which they deal. I’d also give these committees the resources to hire their own experts — economists, lawyers, consultants, etc.12 But I’d also make sure that these committees were not explicitly partisan. Rather than Republicans and Democrats having separate committee staffs, have one committee staff of professionals and experts. Staff could be a mix of political leanings. But let them be one team, where they argue and hash out ideas together.