I wrote a song last year (“Politician Blues / Homo Electus”) that railed against the institutionalized corruption and incompetence in Congress – the consequence of “permanent incumbency”. Truth is, the overwhelming majority of Senators and Congressmen – on both sides of the aisle – have the objective of spending their entire careers as politicians. We, the people, suffer as a result. I found the concept below very compelling, and encourage the millions (:-) of Rantcaster followers to pass this message on:
Congressional Reform Act of 2010
1. Term Limits: 12 years only, one of the possible options below.
A. Two Six year Senate terms
B. Six Two year House terms
C. One Six year Senate term and three Two Year House terms
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
2. No Tenure / No Pension:
A congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security:
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund moves to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, Congress participates with the American people.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, server your term(s), then go home and back to work.
4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan just as all Americans.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
7. Congress must equally abide in all laws they impose on the American people.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
8. All contracts with past and present congressmen are void effective 1/1/11.
The American people did not make this contract with congressmen, congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
If you agree with the above, pass it on to all in your address list. If not, just delete.
[...] Rantcaster posted this, and I think he has some very good points. I’m not a huge fan of term limits in general, because I think that the election is supposed to serve that function. On the other hand, the system is badly broken because of people who stay in Congress for decade after decade and make themselves more powerful on and on. [...]
Wickle,
Though it is true that elections should serve the function of clearing out “dead wood”, we all know that gerrymandering and other tricks tend to foster permanent incumbency. Term limits and elections are a winning combination at the President level – no reason the same structure couldn’t work for Congress. I once sat next to former North Dakota Governor Ed Schafer at a lunch, and he commented that he was proud to have served his time in politics as the Founders envisioned it, and then returned to the private sector. This idea needs a high-profile champion to move it forward. The alternative is more of the same dysfunction, which to my mind is depressingly grim.
Throw the bums out!
Rantcaster,
Just found your site — good stuff! A commenter (“UpperLeftCoast”) on Huffington Post linked to your “Sarah’s Faked Alaska” song on YouTube, and your YouTube bio led me to your blog. I dig the songs — please keep ‘em coming.
Couldn’t agree more on your term limits proposal.
Peace.
Hello, Raging
Thanks for your note. Always amazed at how the connections get made!
More songs coming – watch this space.
And peace to you…
So, this little list actually got forwarded to me via email by a friend! I feel obligated to respond. Unfortunately my links probably wont be preserved, but I referenced lots of good articles/research showing the reason behind my arguments.
Anyway, here it is:
1) Term limits do nothing to stop the 2-year political (and media) cycle that has polarized Washington into extremely partisan camps that want to see nothing but the other side fail. Term limits just means that you would only have a constant stream of inexperienced politicians shuffling in and out of Washington not knowing how it operates, how to negotiate, or how to legislate for the extreme-long-term.
2) Many institutions, both public and private, offer pensions to their retired employees. I don’t think Congressional qualifications or payments are unfair or out of line with what is typical of that payscale. Pension rate is 55% of income, which I don’t believe to be exorbitant. The average pension for a Member Of Congress was $35,952 in 2006. The UAW pays $36,000 before Social Security and those people were making quite a bit less by comparison before they were retired.
3) Moving the congressional pension into social security is a silly concept – they are not even remotely related. The congressional pension is paid our of the congressional operational budget, where as the SSA is part of the executive branch. This kind of talk is just purely nonsensical politicking if I ever heard it.
4) Congresspeople already can purchase their own private retirement plan if they choose to…
5) Tying congressional pay to inflation is an equally silly and nonsensical notion. Especially if limited to the lesser of CPI or 3%. If the economy experiences vast expansion and subsequent inflation, congresspeople would be effectively be taking a huge paycut every year this happened (as loose monetary policy would likely be the catalyst or continuing cause of economic expansion). Conversely, if the American economy experiences a negative economic shock such as a spike in oil prices (et al.) this too could cause high inflation (i.e. 12 and 13% during the petrol shocks of 79). If we’re financially punishing Congresspeople for both succeeding and failing, eventually they wouldn’t even be paid a living wage.
6) This is just a bald-faced (and hollow) talking point. The Congress does not have its own health care system, but participates in FEHBP which also covers about 8.5 million other federal employees. If anything, the FEHBP has been taken as a success story, as it has extremely small overhead, a small bureaucracy and was even tauted as a way to reform Medicare by the very conservative Heritage Foundation in 1997. Again, similarly to pensions, many public and private institutions pay part or all of a health care program. Congress just happens to participate in a well-managed federal insurance. Why on earth would we want to take away Congresspeoples’ health insurance – to ensure they can’t work when they get sick or become indebted? Yes, the American people face these problems, but that is no reason to impose those same problems on Congress.
7) Congress already does have to abide by the same laws as the American people. Albeit, very few Americans have to navigate the myriad campaign funding laws, congressional decency acts, and very specific and obscure tax codes. Corruption should be ousted wherever it is found, but this problem stems from shaky or ineffectually applied campaign finance and lobbyist laws. These are serious issues. Spending millions of dollars and thousands of congressional man-hours on a blowjob is not.
8) I can’t even understand what this rambling point is about. Contract law? Defense contracting? Contract with America? Pledge to America? If this is referencing all the Republican pledges, contracts, etc. then I do believe that all the posturing and bloviating is silly and just pure politics and a waste of time. But the media and media consumers (i.e. Americans) just eat that up. In other words, they’ll stop doing it when we wise up and stop loving it.
In summary, Serving in Congress is an honor, and potentially a career. In order to understand the minutiae of congress and its procedures, how to negotiate for the long-term beneficial legislation for the American people, and to navigate the political landscape, it takes a lifetime of learning. To borrow from Kennedy, imposing such term limits would “deprive Congress of much needed insight and knowledge”. If you don’t like a representative, just vote them out. However, that requires voting and I know the Jersey Shore is on. The Founding Fathers did not envision Citizen Legislators, and eschewed direct democracy for fear of an impressionable and uneducated populace being ruled by media fiat.
Let me close by simply quoting the Federalist Papers: “The greatest incentive to good behavior and honorable service in the US Congress is one’s regular accountability to the voter’s, not one’s freedom from that accountability”. By that same token, if that American people is not up the task to the task of holding Congress accountable, that is our failing, not theirs. Americans need to be better citizens if we want a functional Democracy. If not, we can just let the current political class run its course so we don’t have to miss that single episode of American Idol in November.
Relevant Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_pension
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/congresspay.htm
http://www.uaw.org/node/292
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/06/gdpinflation.asp
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/1997/06/bg1123nbsp-congresss-own-health-plan
Jon,
I appreciate your very thorough analysis of this controversial issue. No easy answers, but I do think you are missing the forest for the trees. The fact is that members of Congress have over the decades constructed a system that is designed to ensure permanent incumbency: redistricting (sometimes blatantly illegal, such as Tom DeLay’s initiatives), earmarks, tax loopholes for favored industries and even favored companies (all of which are expected to reciprocate come election fundraising time – now even more insidious with the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court). I think you are shortchanging the intelligence of American voters to suggest that term limits would result in a steady stream of inexperienced representatives shuffling in and out of Washington. I, for one, think American voters know how to pick good representatives (remember that a majority voted for Al Gore, but the Florida Supreme Court thought it knew better, and we ended up with what I like to call “Bushwreck”). When the top priority of an elected official becomes the rigging of the game to ensure incumbency, it screams out for term limits. I think the country could survive that.