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Congress no longer answers to the American people. It's members are, for the most part, bought and paid for by the big donors. How else do you think these people can take a job which pays roughly $174,000 per year, then become millionaires after only a few years in office?
They pass bills which they "don't have time to read," they let their unelected staffers do the work we pay them to do.
The article makes some good points.
Something else I'm giving some thought to, the Founders were a whole lot smarter then the people who came after them. Some of the constitutional amendments passed since the document was written fall into the category of really bad ideas.
The 17th Amendment? Senators elected directly by the people, not selected by the state legislators, don't like it.
Limiting the size of Congress (changed in the 1920s, read the article), bad idea,
Oh yes, also institute term limits. The last thing this country needs is professional politicians, which has led to the mess we're in today.
Read the article, give it some thought, then tell me what you think.
I hate politics, but sometimes you have to pay attention.
Yah Sarge, term and AGE limits also. There's a minimum age for Congress, need a maximum age limit also, look at Feinstein for example.
ReplyDeleteLet's not stop at Congress. Look at Feinstein, hell, look at JOE!
Deletejuvat
HEY! I don't do nuffin!
DeleteThat's not a bad idea, Nylon12.
DeleteI agree with age limits, the capitol area pharmacy that serves congress reportedly does a booming business in dementia meds. The founders knew the truism about all governments being corrupt and government powers must be limited to the minimum for the country to function. The last 230+ years have been spent with the government amassing more and more power to itself and continuously sinking deeper into the swamp.
ReplyDeleteThis is my surprised face ...
DeleteI am against term limits and age limits - they are just band-aids to attempt to fix the real problem of crooked elections. If our elections were secure and honest, those concerns would take care of themselves.
ReplyDeleteAnd when did elections become crooked? Recently? How far back would you have to go to find an honest election? Politicians are, by nature, corrupt and venal, or become that way over time. Term limits would help, age limits would as well, after all we already have some age limitations on holding office.
DeleteYes! Yes! We have to do something about... We must!
ReplyDeleteOnly one problem: our vote doesn't count any longer. We first have to go back to the original voting system: votingg on Election Day only; with formal ID, signatures, and an indelible ink that'll last for one week - and clean up the voter rolls.
It'll be a lot of mecessary/long-needed work, but rright now "the vote" means absolutely nothing.
There are many other important changes, but let's first start with the voting process.
Voting on Election Day only, in person with proper ID is good. The only exception would be active duty military.
DeleteCongress can get a pension at 62 if they have five years of service, or at 50 if they have 20 years of service, or at any age with 25 years service. The amount of pension is based on years of service and they get to keep their medical.
ReplyDeleteIMO a person should be limited to 20 years of federal public office whether elected or appointed with the exception of the President and Vice President. The pension would be like the military pension but eligibility starts with 15 years. Anything less is just donated time. Their family and extended family will have their investments frozen while in office until 2 years after leaving office but they would have the option of buying buying market index funds that they could not sell until 2 years after they get out of office. They would also have a yearly IRS audit during this time. Their medical benefits would be through the VA where Veterans would get priority.
I like the idea of 20 years total federal service. Let them deal with the VA, maybe they'd fix the locations which are definitely broken. (Not all are.)
DeleteSpare some humble ones like our rural mailmen (persons) that spend their lives proudly ensuring the mail is delivered whatever the appalling winter weather.
DeleteTwenty years as a rural mailman? Dang.
DeleteMy concern with term limits is that in the end, it would be about 'party' rather than person. Not that it isn't now, but why make it official?
ReplyDeleteI don't know that it isn't already. Make it official and make the parties responsible for putting forward corrupt candidates. Something has to be done, Congress is ineffective and not respected, hasn't been for a long time.
DeleteConservatives spend too much energy worrying about the ideal rather than the facts on the ground. The vast majority of people do not respond to ideals but only to their immediate personal interests.
ReplyDeleteAll, I repeat, all politicians are the problem, not one side or the other. Most so-called "conservatives" are not.
DeleteThe second link is most Progressive in their goals, couched in the usual terms of "bipartisanship" "transparency" and "efficiency" but all focused on moving in one direction.
ReplyDelete/
L.J.
Yes, but I wanted to show another viewpoint.
DeleteSo many problems in congress that need fixin, and I somewhat like the idea that growing congress would reduce lobbyist effectiveness, but I think the ruling power class would enact rules to maintain their power base. I don't agree with expanding the supreme court. While I'm not advocating for it, Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor climax is one solution.
ReplyDeleteI agree about the Supreme Court.
DeleteI honestly cannot accept that "more government" is a good idea, so NO. Term limits are anathema to me simply because they don't reflect the will of the people. Obviously that idiot's constituents like and agree with that idiot's policies or they would have stopped voting Feinstein and Pelosi decades ago but they didn't. Their State is ever so much better in every way for keeping the same thugs in power for decades. Just look at how COVID funding wiped out billions of $ of California and California city debt overnight.
ReplyDeleteOn the gripping hand, it's not good for the overall country. Of course when people start talking like that you turn around expecting to see the NKVD or Gestapo laying a hand on your shoulder.
Not more government, more Congresscritters. The will of the people? You mean the last election? Or the one before that?
DeleteThe House of Representatives has had 435 seats since 1911, made permanent in 1929.
ReplyDeleteThe population in 1911 was around 93,000,000 and we had 45 states. We now have close to 330,000,000 people in 50 states.
The House needs to expand at least four fold. This would dilute the power of the individual Representative, make it much harder for lobbyists and PACs to buy legislation, and make it easier for other parties to gain seats in the House.
Yup, concur.
DeleteConcur with the problem, but not the solution, but I really don't have a better solution. Expanding the numbers in Congress is a bad idea as a body of 435 people is dysfunctional from the start just by the number of preening egos who want to be visible on any issue, so they won't get anything done. (Getting nothing done, however, may be a great improvement of getting horrible crap done, which is much of what they do now.)
ReplyDeleteI really like the ideas of cutting retirement bennies for congresscritters, and making their med benefits VA only, and secondary to actual vets.
Given the untrustworthiness of the current electoral process, and the incredible bias and dishonesty in the media, simply more voting will not fix much, only provide a veneer of credibility to a sewer of corruption.
One question, Sarge, what was the post over on NepLex group yesterday that the gawds of Eff Book jammed?
John Blackshoe
The only other fix I can see involves blood, lots of blood. No one wants that.
DeleteOur system was set up to not do things. Congress - two houses, one for the States, one for the People, so there is one impediment, then an executive to say, "What is this piece of trash? No way I'm signing it!"
DeleteThe the Court with the power to say, "You're all full of it! Do you idjits even know what powers the Constitution gives you, and how limited those powers are?"
We have strayed from the path.
DeleteI am ambivalent on term limits. California passed it sometime ago. It was in informally touted as "the Willie Brown rule", to get the corrupt Willie Brown out of the state assembly
ReplyDeleteAll it has done is have these politicians use the offices as revolving chairs. Termed out of the legislature? Run for treasurer! And I'm sure they use the campaign money they've got from the legislature for the new offices
Some thing that's been on my mind for sometime and what is the subject of an op Ed in the Wall Street Journal recently
All of these bureaucracies the Congress has created have taken on a life of their own as far as legislative power
I think what has happened to the automotive industry since the federal government decided to enact "a few simple rules on emissions and safety" in 66 or 67.
Now they pretty much dictate how you're going to design a car
Look at what the EPA has done with their edicts.
It amazes me that so many politicians go in as poor people and leave as millionaires and it doesn't seem to picque the interest of the press at all
Washington has become pretty corrupt
But ultimately you have to blame the people. Even if the congressmen pay a little attention to the voters they're still the ones that put them in
Some wag one suggested that we should give congressman coats like NASCAR which have all the names of their sponsors on the coat
As far as the Senate being picked by the state legislatures? Just as political. I doubt if we'd have anything different in California if the state legislature picked them
After all we gave the country Kamala Harris
Term limits would help ameliorate a, ahem, lack of knowledge when casting one's ballot.
DeleteHo-boy, someone's dander got ruffled.
ReplyDeleteYes on returning senatorial elections to the state legislatures. States should have their voices heard in Congress and should have power of recall on their senators. Basically ambassadors of the states.
No on increasing the number of representatives. And here's why. It would put even more power in the hands of blue cities and large population areas.
Better control of congress-critters would be to disallow any stock or market trading, disassociation from all businesses, open publishing of their finances and property ownerships. Make them feel like us.
And then attack the permanent bureucratic classes. Make them pay for what they've done to this country.
"Make them pay for what they've done...": The question I keep asking (continually, besides will I live to see it?) is by whom and when?
DeleteBeans - Make them pay? How, who? Slippery slope there, one best avoided.
Deleteboron - Ditto.
DeleteI wish Micheal Z. Williamson would write a book about the founding of the government on Grainne; we come to there after several hundred years. Unicameral government, no elections. Buy your seat by selling everything you own (there's a minimum, most can't do that) and giving the money (gold) to the government. First novel in the series is "Freehold" and is a great mil-sf series.
ReplyDeleteEvery thing after the 13th Amendment should be tossed. We can keep the first paragraph of the 14th; no more.
Not sure about the entirety of the 14th, there's some logic after that 1st paragraph. (The insurrection clause springs to mind.)
DeleteTerm limits did F**k-all to restrain the CA government because the Permanent Lobbyist and Bureaucrat classes were left intact. As long as there are billions of dollars to pilfer nothing will change. The only way I see to clean things up is to prune back EVERY non-Article department by firing the employees, selling the assets and leveling the buildings after disbanding and banning unions for tax-paid employees.
ReplyDeleteExtreme, but it might work.
DeleteSo the first article's reasoning is basically "the solution to pollution is dilution"? Okay, I suppose it works in medicine. I had a vet tell me that once, and have heard it from Poison Control also for certain instances. I remember reading someplace that the Founders were not concerned with making Congress more efficient-- that the goal was to slow down the process instead of speeding it up.
ReplyDeleteI guess my question is why is the answer to whatever the hot topic of the day happens to be, why is the answer always that of Congress "must do something!!" We already have so many laws, rules, and regulations that no one can possibly keep track of everything. How much of all of this work that keeps the Congress busy is just busy work?
If the Congress gets larger in size, does that mean the taxes will need to increase to support all these new congress critters? Not sure I'm wild about that idea. I do agree that the rapid increase in wealth that occurs when one goes off to Congress could use a stringent audit--preferably by an adult who has a firm grasp of the concepts of budgets, the hazards of credit cards/unsecured debt, and an understanding of how the stock market works and has a firm foundation in ethics and common sense, which just isn't very common these days.
I read the 2nd link--be sure your BP meds are on board first is all I'm going to say there.
I haven't ever been an advocate of term limits or age limits, until the past couple of years. Having seen members of both parties "age in place" -- that was a phrase that was meant to help folks stay in their own houses, not the "people's house" for crying out loud. I would also think that certain medical conditions should exclude you from running/serving, just like it does in the military. And maybe the annual physicals need to be public record, not swept under the rug? But term limits definitely!! And you can't run for the Presidency, or the Senate, or the House, or be nominated to the Supreme Court if you are over 75. After all there is a minimum age, why not a maximum age?
But I think a major overhaul needs to happen with the mass media--The Fourth Estate. It, realistically, is how the vast majority of folks in this country get their information. Regardless if that comes via your computer, your cell phone, the TV/radio, or the newspaper/magazine, there needs to be a set of standards involving impartiality for writers/reporters/news organizations--or, at the very least a conspicuous indicator of what the bias is--in print, running along the bottom of the screen. There are A LOT of folks in this country who have NO CLUE that one news show/magazine/web site is squarely in the back pocket of one party or the other. And I would certainly agree that a lot of this should be taught via history or civics classes in school--how do we get those topics, along with basic economics and logic classes, back into the schools? That is another rant.
Bottom line--in order to maintain this more perfect Union, and to be able to keep this Republic, now that we have it, the general population needs to be educated and informed. Which is a HUGE undertaking to be sure.
Suz
Suz,
Delete100 shots fired, 100 hits. Good shooting Tex! Well Done!
Thanks
juvat
Suz - Shack.
DeleteJuvat - Concur.
Delete