Want to cut spending? Cut terms

NY Post ^ | February 5, 2011 | CAROLINE BAUM

[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.

[P.O.E.]

Why would anyone spend millions of dollars for a job that pays in the thousands?

My guess: so they can jury-rig the tax code, broker side deals, get to fly the in the company jet, etc. as well as plain old corruption.

There is too much government, period.

[Reeses]

Term limits - the ultimate Holy Grail of politics - will solve 99% of the goobermint problems, spelling the end of the politics as a lifetime career choice.

All organizations move to the left over time until they go bankrupt. The speed this happens is related to the management turnover rate. New candidates typically offer to give away part of the store to get elected. Speeding up the management turnover rate is no solution to the looting at all.

[NTHockey]

Outlaw campaign contributions altogether. Make them spend their own money to get elected/reelected. Maybe then they’d realize what it means to live on a budget.

And the old arguement that that would mean only millionaires could run - Horse hockey. The internet and hand shaking doesn’t require money.

[Texas Fossil]

It is TIME to DownSize DC!

And TIME to force Congresss and Senate to telecommute most of the year from their home district. There is no reason for them to be in DC most of the year. NONE.

The Constitution states that they shall meet at least 1 time per year and does not state the duration.

The Texas Legislature meets 1 time every 2 years unless the Governor calls for a special session. It has worked well for a very long time.

Can you imagine the cost saving of removing the Congress and Senate from DC 3/4s of the year? And it would remove them from the influence of the lobbyist for that time and place them back under the thumb of the electorate.

A total change of the Center-of-Gravity of the Federal Government.

IT IS TIME!

[hosepipe]

[ Senators would be allowed one eight year term. ]

NO... 2 x 4 year terms..

[Joe 6-pack]

Term limits are, IMHO, just a means of obviating the voters of further responsibility to educate themselves about the candidates. The problem is not so much the corrupt politicians as it is the voters that keep re-electing them.

The problem as I see it is that legislators pass laws that are for the benefit of lawyers. Lawyers are admitted members of the bar, officers of the court, and consequently, members of the judicial branch of government. Putting them in a position to write and pass laws or to enforce them could not be any more of a conflict of interest. There should be a 4-8 year waiting period between the time an individual practices law or holds a membership in a law firm and the time they can run for legislative or executive office at the federal level.

[DNME]

Spending within the limits set by the Constitution, primarily Article I, Section 8, is easily sustainable. It’s when Congress jumps the fence and starts “helping the poor and downtrodden” that we get screwed.

Personally, I think we can cut spending substantially by following the Tea Party goal of eliminating the Department of Education and the Department of Energy. Name me ONE THING that either of them contributes to their respective field! Does Energy add one barrel of oil to our supply? Does Education provide one pencil to the classroom? Evaporate both of them.

[upchuck]

My druthers:

1. If you have worked as a lawyer in ANY capacity in the last five years, you are ineligible to run for federal office.

2. If you have worked in any capacity for a lobbying firm, even for one day, you may never run for federal office.

3. Once in office you have a maximum of 12 years to be in office. Use them wisely.

4. Reps and Senators already in office get the same 12 years. Items 5 and 6 apply.

5. While in office, you must telecommute from your home district at least 50% of the days Congress is in session.

6. Once you leave office you can never work for any entity that has connection to the federal government in any way.

[Aevery_Freeman]

Well, good luck with that, Diogenes.