1. Repeal the 17th Amendment. Take it back to state legislatures to appoint senators to the national congress.
2. Establish a baseline for congressional pay, and give the state legislatures the power to increase congressional pay on an annual basis, with established limits on 1 year, 2 year, 4 year, and 6 year averages. Do not allow legislators to vote on their own pay and perqs.
3. Establish maximum allowable administrative support for congressthings. For members of committees, provide a maximum allowable committee augment.
4. Require congressthings to report as income every dollar that goes to them, whether through congressional pay, speaking fees, "gifts" of goods or of services (maybe a "Gift Czar" to overview assessment of gift value?!), and of campaign donations.
5. Bar any bill before congress from including funds that are not in DIRECT support of that bill (maybe a "Common Sense Czar", since that seems to be lacking).
6. Require any bill before congress to be publicly posted for a minimum of 5 working days before being voted on.
(Oh that's right, 0 already made a promise like that, just as he promised that there would be no bills with earmarks, then that there would only be that ONE bill with earmarks, because it was so d@mned important, then, . . .
Well, where's the change? This president truly had the opportunity to call on Americans to make sacrifices to make the country a better place. But his promises to NOT do Washington business as usual have resulted in the same tawdry, greedy, grubby, underhanded cr@p that has gone before, if not worse.
Well said, I agree. Of course what should happen and what will are two very different things. The majority of the members of Congress in both party’s are there for themselves and their friends that support them and be damned with the country. They become more arrogant and blatant about it with each passing year.