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Posted on 10/02/2013 11:17:37 AM PDT by Salgak
I've had an idea how to get the Budget process fixed, and maybe Capitol Hill as well:
I have a genuinely bi-partisan solution to the underlying budget problem. An Amendment to the Constitution.
With the following terms:
A budget, NOT a continuing resolution, must be passed by the House and submitted to the Senate by June 1st of every year. The Senate must hold a vote on the budget by July 1st of every year.
If the House and Senate cannot agree on a budget, they MUST go into conference on the budget on the next business day, and neither the House or Senate may consider ANY other business until the Budget is settled.
A Continuing Resolution may be allowed from October 1st until November 1st.
Enforcement: If any deadline is missed for any reason, the entire membership of the offending body (i.e. the House or Senate) is automatically recalled from office, and the entire current personal and committee staffs of the offending body are immediately dismissed from their employment for cause, without possibility of appeal. No elected member shall be eligible for re-election to the Congress in any district or State, for a period of five complete terms of office for the last office held. And in case of auto-recall, all pensions for elected members are forfeit, less any contributions made directly from the elected members' salary.
(And yes, that WILL clear out the geriatrics in the Senate. That's a Feature, not a Bug. . . . )
No staff member may be employed by any Federal Agency or Organization for ten calendar years after auto-recall.
(And the staffs are an even worse problem: de-facto mandarins. . .)
And, after recall/dismissal, neither elected members or staff enjoined from being employed by, or compensated in any way by, any organization that participates in Lobbying to the Federal Government.
(Which tries to fix the Revolving Door Problem in Washington. . . )
Should both bodies fail to pass a permanent budget by November 1st, the budget of the previous Fiscal Year shall be adopted for the new Fiscal Year.
That should clear the deadwood, both political and institutional, from the Hill, stop the shutdowns, and maybe, just maybe, get some actual citizens elected. . . .
Congress foting to recall themselves if they don’t do their jobs? It will never happen.
I think you missed the mark.
If congress doesn’t do the fiscal work to keep the government going then it is shut down.
It is working how it should work.
In the last 36 years, the government has been shut down 17 times.
I would remind you that Congress is not the ONLY route to amending the Constitution. . .
But you have (apparently) not. If in fact you have not, I am likely to reward you by clicking through to the blog. If I like it, I will be a repeat visitor. :)
So you copy the budget for the prior year and it's the same thing as a continuing resolution.
The senate and house would never let this be proposed, it would have to be an Article 5 proposituion by state legislatures...
The difference between a budget and a continuing resolution is level of detail and the magic words on top. To illustrate I offer the following amusing anecdote.
Ford, whose electrical engineers couldn’t solve some problems they were having with a gigantic generator, called Steinmetz in to the plant. Upon arriving, Steinmetz rejected all assistance and asked only for a notebook, pencil and cot. According to Scott, Steinmetz listened to the generator and scribbled computations on the notepad for two straight days and nights. On the second night, he asked for a ladder, climbed up the generator and made a chalk mark on its side. Then he told Ford’s skeptical engineers to remove a plate at the mark and replace sixteen windings from the field coil. They did, and the generator performed to perfection.
Henry Ford was thrilled until he got an invoice from General Electric in the amount of $10,000. Ford acknowledged Steinmetz’s success but balked at the figure. He asked for an itemized bill.
Steinmetz, Scott wrote, responded personally to Ford’s request with the following:
Making chalk mark on generator $1.
Knowing where to make mark $9,999.
Ford paid the bill.
Our Constitution is fine and the problem is “We, the people” electing lawless politicians to office. I don’t mean all of us “people”, but enough who see this as Republican vs. Democrat. Until we start shaming the parasites, law breakers, special self-interest groups no law can substitute for morality and a good conscience. We are getting the government we deserve and I sure hate being part of the “we” that gets dragged along for the ride I don’t want.
You have some good ideas.
I think an ammendment to allow the People to hold a national vote of no confidence in the current federal gov’t would be a good thing.
If the vote passes against the POTUS or the Congress:
The members of the House and Senate, and/or the POTUS is recalled from office. No member shall be eligible for re-election to the Congress or POTUS for a period of five complete terms of office for the last office held. All pensions for elected members are forfeit, less any contributions made directly from the elected members’ salary.
Example: shutdown the government, that includes you not getting paid.
Example: force obamacare on us, then you are not exempt.
By all means please feel free to add on...
Even without a Constitutional Amendment, there is an obligation already in the Constitution that the House of Representatives must originate all taxation legislation, and yet, Harry Reid just airily dismisses those provisions. What makes anybody think another amendment will compel this bunch of intransigent fools to behave in the manner they are expected to achieve?
What this country needs is a more informed class of voters. There is no longer a requirement that critical thinking skills be exhibited and put to use.
Either by the voters, or the people they elect to office.
I agree. That makes this shutdown the fault of the democrats.
I have a better amendment.
Congress shall not serve more than 2 consecutive 2 year terms and the senate no more than 1 consecutive 4 year term.
Any person serving in government and leaving government cannot reenter government before a five year period expires. During that five year period, the employee cannot work in any field with government outreach, ie: media, lobby, union.
"This country belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it."
--Abraham Lincoln
IT’s on the to-read-when-I-get-the-time pile (grin)
He’s still a pimpin’ . .
Why is it unacceptable for a blogger to excerpt his blog on FR? In other words, how is it different from posting an article from any other news source? Reproducing the entire blog post uses up (expensive) bandwidth, the same as any other article, correct? I have to agree with Laz, in that if an excerpt interests me, I’ll go over and have a look, and it doesn’t matter if it’s from a blog or one of the alphabet news sources. Suppose a FReeper were an employee of one of those alphabet news sources and were repeatedly posting excerpts from articles on their site – they would be doing exactly the same thing as a blogger, attempting to lure readers to click over to their site.
It just seems to me that requiring a blogger to post the entire article takes up unnecessary bandwidth. I understand that unscrupulous bloggers might use this as a means to attract more blog hits, but even so, wouldn’t it cost FR less if an excerpt were posted, rather than the full article?
I’m not a blogger or anything – as I said, it was a serious question, just seeking information.
There is no reason that he cannot post the full content right here.
Reproducing the entire blog post uses up (expensive) bandwidth, the same as any other article, correct?
No. A few hundred or thousand text characters are as nothing.
It just seems to me that requiring a blogger to post the entire article takes up unnecessary bandwidth.
You seem to be thinking in "dial-up" era terms.
No obstacles exist to bloggers posting their full content.
The only reason bloggers excerpt is to drive traffic to their
blogs, using Free Republic as an advertising source and a hit farm.
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than bloggers.
“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than bloggers.”
Funny, that is right where I would rate the blogger-police. It wasn’t hard at all to find one.
OK, thank you. If it doesn’t cost FR any more to post the entire blog article, then it makes sense — I was under the misimpression (if that’s a word) that the bigger the post, the more space used, therefore the higher cost to FR — that was my only concern.
I'm so sorry you has a sad.
But on the upside, your post helps us justify the armor budget.
So we've got that working for us.
A very foolish idea. It’s what we basically have now, except now we have some loopholes to keep the place running when nobody is held accountable for doing their job.
The EXECUTIVE branch is the one responsible to figure out how much it will cost them to do their job. The LEGISLATIVE branch controls the purse strings.
The problem is that the Executive Branch has not been held accountable to produce a manageable budget for Congress to approve.
CONGRESS should be telling the White House, it will NOT approve a budget UNTIL that budget meets cost constraints.
Likewise, the Executive Branch should be giving priorities of what it considers is essential in the budget.
Congress can then approve or disapprove the budget.
Our fundamental problem is that in both the Legislative and Executive Branches of government, we’ve approved too many expenditures by either law or regulation, which cost way too much to implement.
We need another EPA regulation to increase the cost of gasoline by $1/gal like we need a hole in the head.
Note, that is an EPA proposed regulation,....EXECUTIVE Branch,...not legislative. If it is included in an Act it becomes LEGISLATIVE.
The Executive must be constrained in it’s ability to regulate which drives up the cost to run business and the decrease in our liberty.
Open back up the government and define those constraints over the next year.
In other words THEY DON'T GET PAID (and no retroactive pay either).
Term limits with vengence!
“Every elected member of the Legislative and Executive Branch or those appointed to the Judicial Branch of Government shall be elected or appointed to a single six year term and executed in the fifth year of his/her term.”
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