Speaking of Term Limits: If the US Presidency has term limits, then the US Congress should have term limits. It is a natural fact that the longer someone is in power, the more power they can potentially develop. Let's say that each Senator can only have two terms, eight years maximum. This equals the President. Let's say that each Representative can only have four terms, eight years maximum. This equals the President. It all works out nicely.
But, stay with me, there are many other benefits: If one only can spend, at most, eight years in office, one has to have another way to make a living...like live in the real world so he/she can identify with the rest of us. If they have to have another way to make a living, they have to know how to 'make money', rather than 'take money'. For years we have been creating monsters for ourselves by taking uneducated college graduates who major in politics and have never had to make a living. All they have learned to do is bribe us, the people, with our own money, to keep them in office. With term limits, political office isn't a career, it is a short term, duty, calling.
With term limits, the office isn't so valuable that individuals or groups would be willing to pay millions of dollars to get and hold the office. Who would dump millions of dollars into a job that only lasts eight years?
With term limits, who would dump thousands of dollars into deep investigations into opponents' pasts or lie, cheat and steal to win and hold for only eight years. Maybe this would help clean up politics a bit.
With term limits, special interest groups would be stimied in bribing our representatives. No one person would be available long enough in office to make a huge difference. If we churn our reps, we keep them a moving target.
With term limits, we go a long way in getting rid of 'seniority.' Where, in the Constitution is the concept of 'seniority'? Seniority makes your representative more powerful than mine. Aren't we supposed to have equal representation? Get term limits and get rid of seniority.
With term limits, we would reduce the 'ruling elitism' that we have allowed to develop in our Congress. They think...they 'know'... they are better, smarter, and more deserving than the rest of us. They vote themselves big pay raises in the dark of night because they know we would be displeased. They scorn us. They vote themselves huge retirements for minimum service. They scorn us. They vote themselves health coverage that is better than the rest of us have. They scorn us. They have manufactured an ideal world for themselves with our money: different/better wages, different/better retirement, different/better benefits from the rest of us who have to pay for it. Who died and made them rulers? We elected them to serve us. Demand term limits. If they won't vote it, we have the ballot. Turn each one out aftethe maximum of eight years. Don't let them buy us and our freedom as they bankrupt us to pay for their luxuries or bankrupt us through their pure incompetence. Get experienced, competent people to spend a few years really serving their country and then let them go home. This was our forefathers' dream.
In a forum, I asked my representative a question, a few years ago: "You initially campaigned for term limits. That is why I voted to put you in Washington. Now you have been there ten years and you are still hoping to keep the office. What happened to you and term limits?" His answer: "Oh, you just don't understand how difficult it is to learn your way around things in Washington. One has to be there a long time to learn the ropes and get things done." No, he doesn't understand that I understand...it's because we have left people up there too long that they have been able to make it difficult to learn how to get things done. We have created old coots with seniority that our new reps have to kiss their ring. We have allowed them to make all kinds of 'rules' that circumvent the will of the people. We have allowed them time to create paper mountains that no one can understand and rat runs that only rats know how to run. And, speaking of getting things done: What is the Federal government supposed to do? Pretty simple, really. They are supposed to protect us from our enemies. They are supposed to defend our borders. And, probably, they should look after interstate highways and transportation. For the rest of it, we have individual and states' rights. We are local. We know our needs. The Federal government should stop collecting money from us to pad the pockets of politicians and bureaucrats while giving a small part of it back to us in services they decide we need.
If we keep our representatives rotating frequently, we might have the checks and balances we need to account for money and programs.
If we force term limits, we'll go a long way to curbing our Federal government's spending huge sums of money bribing us to keep them in office. Right now it appears they would bankrupt our country to save their jobs.
