Don't be shy about it and don't worry if they start to squirm.

If you don't get an immediate answer, ask another question:

"Well, how you gonna get the votes?"

If you still don't get an answer, boldly declare:

"Come back and tell me all of your great ideas when you've got the votes."

You see, Washington is full of good ideas; it's kept dozens of think tanks operating for decades.

On the right, there's the Heritage Foundation; on the left the Center for American Progress. And in the middle, the Bipartisan Policy Center.

They're staffed by earnest, idealistic people who believe if they can just come up with the right idea, they can change the world. Or at least Washington.

But Washington is not full of ideas that can gain 218 votes in the Senate and 50 (or more likely 60) votes in the Senate.

That's the trick. Just look at the CFPB, run by Richard Cordray and nobody else. Dodd-Frank made the director answerable to nobody, at least until a current court fight is resolved.

Cordray and his agency have had a big target painted on it.

President Trump and congressional Republicans don't like Cordray, but until a court fight is resolved, they'll have trouble firing him unless he does something very wrong.

Cordray gets his money directly from the Federal Reserve, so Congress can't slash his budget if members don't like what he does.

And Republican members hate what he does.

The GOP controls both Houses of Congress, so they should be able to rein in Cordray, right?

But so far, they've been able to do little about the agency.

In the House, GOP members have tried to change the governance of the CFPB. They've tried it through appropriations measures, but the Senate has refused to accept the changes.

They've tried it through House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling's (R-Texas) Financial CHOICE Act. Hensarling's committee approved the legislation last year, but Democrats were so confident the plan was doomed, they sat back and offered no amendments.

The legislation never went to the floor, as Republicans made it clear they would be back this year.

And so, as the 115th Congress convened, Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) has introduced legislation that would convert the agency into a five-member commission.

Fischer's proposal has been introduced in two previous congresses, but it has gone nowhere.

And of course, even if by some chance Republicans had succeeded in neutering the CFPB, President Obama was waiting on the other end of Pennsylvania Ave. with his veto pen ready to go.

Now there's a Republican in the White House, or the winter White House or Trump Tower.

And the namesakes of the Dodd-Frank Act have retired from Congress and aren't around to defend the agency.

So certainly changes are in the offing now, right?

Not so fast.

Democrats in the Senate are staunch defenders of the CFPB. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Banking Committee ranking Democrat Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) have vowed to defend the CFPB against all aggressors.

That could include a threat of a filibuster, which could require 60 votes to break.

As a result, for any substantial changes to the CFPB to be made, Senate Republicans are going to have to gain 60 votes to ward off a filibuster.

In this era of gridlock, the Senate is likely to have trouble finding 60 votes to name post offices after distinguished Americans, let alone something as controversial as the CFPB.

At that point, for anything to be accomplished, deals will have to be cut and compromises reached.

If it's successful, the resulting product won't look anything like what you're hearing at GAC.

So, pay attention to what you hear at GAC, but don't bet the house that any of it is likely to become law.

By the way, I probably should introduce myself. I've been the Washington correspondent for CU Times for about a year. My editors have decided to set aside this real estate every couple of weeks to allow me to try to make some sense of what's happening in our nation's capital.

I've been a Washington-based journalist since 1987 and have written for several of the capital's best-known and now defunct publications. (I believe that is more of a reflection of the state of my profession than my ability to drive publications out of business.)

I covered Congress for The National Journal Group for more than 14 years – first at CongressDaily and then at National Journal magazine. I've worked as an editor at CQ Weekly and along the way served as a contributing editor for the Almanac of American Politics and Politics in America.

After all these years, I still believe Washington is a fascinating place and despite what some people argue, most things that happen here have happened before.

So if you've got questions about how this place works, please feel free to shoot me an email.

And in exchange, remember the question, "You got the votes for that?"

David Baumann is a Correspondent-at-Large for CU Times. He can be reached at [email protected].