I’m not for term limits for elected representatives. Why? As bad as it may be, they are the ONLY choice you have.
How about term limits instead on government programs and GS15 bureaucrats?
People like John Brennan at CIA, James Comey or Andrew McCabe at FBI or Jerome Powell at Federal Reserve are permanent, life-long DC swamp creatures who have incredible power, as we have seen. Did any member of the public vote for them - ever??
Agreed.
The ‘mandarins’ in the bureaucracy are far more pernicious.
From the experience with Reagan and Trump, eliminating bad regulation and law is the most effective way of dealing with too much government. Terming out people will just leave a spot for some other grifter to pick up. That’s why I have this rant about “absolute sunset” cued up:
Absolute Sunset Rant
We need an incontrovertible, un-deniable process to assure we know where elected representatives stand on the basic, foundational aspects of civilization, and how capable they are at maintaining a lawful, proper government.
Here's a proposal I've nicknamed "Absolute Sunset". It's a charter or Constitution-level change, and it can be implemented as needed at the local, state, and federal level. The basic premise is to require a regular public re-affirmation by elected representatives for every law, regulation, directive, edict, proscription, whatever you call the rule-making artifact. This would take place at the beginning of every session, with no discussion or debate, just an affirmation required with the same required majority from the original body required to pass the original bill.
The order of the list of items should be in the reverse of the original precedence of enactment, allowing newer items superseding the older to be removed first. The term for which the affirmation (including the original passage) is valid should be at least the term of two sessions, but on beginning of the third session, the affirmation should be required. If the affirmation fails, then the object expires at the end of the legislative session unless re-instated in full as originally written during the session. In addition, all precedent and other derivative aspects of government founded on the failed object should be completely discarded so as to clean it out of the system completely. An act of repeal should be limited to the repeal and be equivalent to a failure of affirmation, not new legislation.
Then and only then would you know what interests your elected representatives truly represent, because they would be on the spot every single session for the basics of the government. Should they fail to preserve the laws, it will be evident. Should they prefer to let a bad law stand, it will be so evident. Since the schedule of what will be put to the question is fixed, every election will offer an opportunity for the candidate to pledge their affirmation, so it will a subject of contention during the election.
And it will be entirely clear as to whether they keep their promises or stand by their principles.
This will also have the benefit of cleaning up the books over time so that the dead hand of failed and unpopular laws and regulations will not strangle us for generations.