Posted on 02/02/2016 11:27:50 AM PST by pilgrim
Here are a few that I believe all Americans want.
Limit Congress from serving more than two terms. That is all that presidents are allowed.
Stop Congress from voting for their own raises. How did that ever get started?
Stop paying for lawmakers' high-priced insurance premiums. After all, they are only part-time employees. They might pass some law changes on the insurance companies, if they had to find one.
Stop paying lawmakers their full salary after serving just one term, or at retirement. We need to get rid of that pension plan; they've let other companies get rid of theirs. You were lucky to get 40 to 50 percent of your salary after working somewhere for 35 years, but they get 100 percent.
Make Congress pay into the Social Security system. They make laws for it. If they spent some of their own money, they might be interested in making it solvent.
Stop handing out aid to illegal aliens. If we did, then Medicaid and the food stamp program would have enough money to aid the aged and the poor.
Secure our borders.
Stop allowing babies born to illegal aliens in the United States automatic U.S. citizenship.
Stop the abuse of our benevolent welfare system. We feed children free meals three times a day until they are 17. Churches give away good, clean clothes. Companies buy and donate school supplies. Emergency rooms provide health care at taxpayer expense and the food stamp program is buying food at home. What are parents doing for their children?
Have a computer program that cross checks Social Security numbers with fingerprints to stop fraud on many fronts. Use it on voter registration, too.
Stop bailing out mortgage companies and banks that give loans to people who cannot afford them.
Stop companies from paying CEOs and other executives outrageous salaries and bonuses while doing away with workers' pensions.
Stop all unnecessary spending so we will have the money for our nation's security, and to help needy and elderly Americans.
Stop permitting anyone to have a photo with their face covered on driver's licenses.
Whoever wins the presidency will not be able to make these changes.
Only members of Congress can do this, as they are the lawmakers.
I don't believe Congress is interested in changing anything, do you?
Norma White of Amarillo is a retired network engineer for Southwestern Bell.
Take care.........pilgrim
The system is so complex that they couldn’t begin to understand it with just two two-year terms.
The House needs to go to a four-year election cycle so members can do their jobs instead of constantly running for reelection.
I do think the complexity needs to be reduced, but a Congressperson can’t fend off a bureaucrat’s request without knowledge and experience of his own.
‘After all, they are only part-time employees.’
In that vein lets make Congress a PT legislature in that they meet once/year. The remainder of the year they need FT jobs like the rest of us. No more FT pols.
Congressional pay would have been reined in had they ratified this proposed article in the Bill of Rights:
“No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”
An informed electr\orate would vote the miscreants out if, for example, they gave themselves an 8% raise and kept SS COLA flat.
The Texas legislature pretty well does that now.
Seems to work.
And therein lies the rub: While members of congress come and go, the office staffs rarely change. It is they who write the bills that the representatives propose and sponsor, and thus it is ultimately they who control what the laws say. The staffs need to leave when the rep they work for leaves. If they’re going to be penning the laws that get passed, then they need to be accountable to the public.
If the system is that complex, then it is the system that needs reformation first. Then rework the staffing side so we don’t end up with entrenched (and generally liberal) staffers doing all the real work of writing laws. Congress passes far too many laws as it is. If that pace were to slow down, then maybe representatives wouldn’t *need* huge staffs of unelected bureaucrats to write their bills.
As does NH. I agree, it works REALLY well. Why is there any need to have it more often or a class of FT pols?
Understood.
The bureaucracy is also one of the things that needs shaking up!
Someone made the suggestion that they work from their districts. With all the technology available it could be worked out. That way the voter can ‘reach’ them easier.
I would have to be worked out but something to consider.
Had a “much smarter” than I am friend suggest that Congressional pay be based on the ‘Economy’, if we balance the budget, good. If there is a surplus better, etc.
That is beyond my pay grade but there are people that capable in doing such a system.
That was ratified-- eventually-- in 1992. It's now part of the Constitution, as the 27th Amendment. Hasn't made much difference, though.
Brilliant!
Wish there was a way to require all (at least Republicans) to adhere. I had posted this some years ago and still think it is good!
I would gladly vote for a Democrat or a “what-chu-may-call-it” who would DO, not just a campaign promise but actually DO this.
Take care.........pilgrim
When you cut the pay of lawmakers below what they can live on guess what happens? They become even more beholden to those who will employ them on the way out.
Term limits in California have been a disaster. What we got was a string of nameless incompetents planning to be future lobbyists if they couldn't move up the ladder.
Is this now a conservative position? Really?!! A limited Constitutional government cannot control what salaries private businesses are allowed to pay. And it wouldn't want to.
Let's leave this type of claptrap to Bernie Sanders.
Term limits in California have been a disaster. What we got was a string of nameless incompetents planning to be future lobbyists if they couldn't move up the ladder.
When people are frustrated they want to vent and not think too deeply of unintended consequences of part-time / cut-rate government and "revolving doors" — they are looking for simple and easy answers (often provided by competing special interests)...
But just, as one example, who is going to run all the investigations of Clintons and Obamas and oversee all the runaway agencies and their unaccountable bureaucrats if the people "cut their pay and send them home"? If many Congress critters are not doing the job or not doing it well, that is no reason to slash and burn - people may end up with even weaker, less accountable and responsive institutions and system.
"There is always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong." - H. L. Mencken
"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple." - Oscar Wilde
Hope and change, dontcha know?
Describes this primary season perfectly. Conservatives have joined the angry mob.
And a Good Morning to you!
“These are some” Guess this had no meaning.
And btw did not write the article. :) Just posted it.
If you read posts #9 and #10 you will see some other thoughts on the subject.
Thanks.
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