[goldstategop]

Agreed. The only thing I regret is not holding the Party's feet to the fire when it was riding high after 94' and focusing the next effort after welfare reform on term limits instead of shutting the government down. A lot of the Congresscritters responsible for our current situation would either have been gone already or been on the way out. Its working wonders here in my home state of California in forcing entrenched liberals out of top leadership posts in the State Legislature.

[Congressman Billybob]

I agree with you entirely on term limits as a beneficial reform. But even in 1994, the Republicans were never serious about that.

The National Taxpayers Union published a major study about a year ago, tracking the spending habits of members of Congress against how long they had been in Congress, The bottom line was this: the longer they stay, the more they vote for larger government and higher taxes.

Both Republicans and Democrats went up in their spending votes at the same rate, the longer they stayed there. The difference between the Parties appeared in the fact that the Republicans started lower on the spending scale than the Democrats, and stayed lower IF COMPARED TO DEMOCRATS IN OFFICE THE SAME AMOUNT OF TIME.

But term limits have the same problem as belling the cat. It's a good idea, but who's going to do it? Will Congress vote for such an amendment? Not in this lifetime. I've spent a lot of effort on that subject, and even wrote a book about it. But I will waste no more time flogging that dead horse.

Billybob