Posted on 02/06/2011 3:45:38 AM PST by Scanian
The Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives is promising to cut $100 billion from domestic spending this year. The Tea Party caucus’s response? I’ll see your $100 billion and raise you $2.4 trillion over 10 years.
Both groups are barking up the wrong tree or, to use a more appropriate animal analogy, putting the cart before the horse. The road to real deficit reduction, not a cosmetic nip and tuck, runs through term limits. If Americans are truly interested in shrinking the size of government — one of the takeaways from the 2010 midterm election — they can start by limiting the amount of time lawmakers are allowed to serve.
This would require a constitutional amendment, no mean feat, requiring as it does approval by a two-thirds majority in Congress. But not impossible either. Recent events in the Middle East demonstrate just how potent people power can be.
Would it surprise you to learn that newbies in Congress (those who have served six years or less in the House and 12 or less in the Senate) are more likely to vote for fiscal restraint than veteran lawmakers? Or that this finding was based on votes taken from 1995 through 1998, when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress? Even Newt Gingrich’s class of ’94, determined to shrink the size and scope of government, couldn’t buck the Old Guard, according to the results of this Cato Institute study.
In the last two years, the spending increases in bills proposed by freshman House Democrats were 60% lower than those sponsored by their more senior colleagues, according to Peter Sepp, vice president for communications at the National Taxpayers’ Union. The GOP freshmen proposed 15% more cuts in spending than the old-timers.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Term limits will just accelerate spending and waste.
We must have a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. SPENDING AND WASTE must be stopped!
This country now owes over its capacity to generate reveue, that is a death knell we should be hearing.
I believe if you limited every Congressman to 3 terms and every Senator to 1 term...you’d suddenly find “pay-back” wasn’t in their top ten priorities. I also think letting a Congressman or Senator push out a research project to give some professor $650k to find out why skunks smell...is a bit beyond the capability of the politician. It ought to be left to government departments that already exist and can readily explain the logic for the grant...which none of the Senators or Congress can.
How about taxing campaign funds in excess of $250,000 raised by incumbents at a rate of 50%?
I propose two four year terms for House members, with half the House elected every two years.
Senators would be allowed one eight year term. And no member could be eligible to run for the other house until eight years had elapsed between the last time they served in their old house.
This should eliminate the permanent political class in Washington. Congresscritters could stick around for two presidential terms. It would mean a great difference to representation in Congress and constantly rejuvenate it with fresh blood.
Of course the real obstacle is the refusal of congresscritters to give up their lifetime sinecures. That’s human nature. But if the American people demand it, sooner than later legislative term limits will be imposed on Congress as well.
I think 8 years is quite frankly plenty of time for politicians to get their work done. Congress today resembles the old Soviet Politburo - superannuated politicians literally clinging to power until they die. And many of them represent a breed of politics that is two or three generation out of touch with today’s political sensibilities. If we wanted a monarchy, we would have one! The joke is we got it - with Congress, which shows as much regard for its subjects as King George III did when he ruled the colonies.
I think you are wrong, those pos on the hill get so bought off by riding the corporate jets and loose whore’s they will do whatever is necessary to keep and to stop those pictures from getting released.
I would keep the terms to 3, 2 year for house snd 1 6 year for Senators. The down side to TL is you wind up with Lame ducks. I would go back to nomination by convention to lessen the need for so much campaign money. A 3 month presidential is about right.
public service should not be a career
Cut terms won’t happen why would a hack give up being above the law,perks,kick backs,face time on camers.Yeah the good old boy club is doing just fine thank you.
Replace them at every election and the problem will end or at least get better.
Ya gotta let the whole House run every year...that’s the fastest way for the people to have their voice heard. I like 4 terms for House, two for Senate, total of 20 years possible for excellent members but most will serve 8.
Yes, already most of the real governing is done by nameless, faceless bureaucrats unaccountable to any authority. Term limits just further empower these unions-protected thugs.
To address our current economic problems we should bring before Congress a simple proposal: Repeal the Sixteenth Amendment.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
This states that Congress can take as much of our income as it wants whenever it wants. Sound like a good idea?
For those who do not recognize this proposal, it is the Sixteenth Amendment to our Constitution. In just short of one-hundred years, these thirty words have destroyed the Last Best Hope of Mankind on Earth.
We are a nation spiraling out of control to a future that none but a few drunk with power desire. There is but one hope to forestall this catastrophe, we must remove from Congress the Right-to-Robbery.
The pain and suffering will be tremendous but we shall survive. Continuing on our current path, these same hardships will result in the handing off to our children a failed state. And they will curse us for it.
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: There are simple answers, just not easy ones. Help champion Our Last Best Hope. Demand that we repeal the Sixteenth Amendment.
“I believe if you limited every Congressman to 3 terms and every Senator to 1 term...”
I propose that all politicians be limited to two terms; one in office and one in prison.
An extreme example would be J. Edgar Hoover who was able to manipulate JFK, RFK and LBJ to wiretap MLK anywhere he went.
Bureaucrats gain power and loyal employees.
What power does the EPA have? The IRS?
The root of the problem is the amount of power concentrated in Washington, power purchased with your wages, confiscated at gunpoint.
REPEAL THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT!
“$2.4 trillion over 10 years”
The GOP wants you to think that is a large number, and the Dems want you to think it is a ridiculously huge number. In fact, it’s only $240 billion per year, and we are running a deficit of $1.5 TRILLION per year. It’s less than 1/6 of the annual deficit. It’s tiny.
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