Senate Dems pussying out again

[ArlingtonDeac]

Highly speculative, Arlington. Highly speculative.

You can't win an opinion fight, but I feel pretty comfortable in saying we don't want ambitious part-timers running the federal government. The only experienced pros in DC would be the lobbyists, who would come to run every facet of Washington that they already don't.

 

[ArlingtonDeac]

Thirty-six of the fifty governor's mansions must be absolute cesspools of corruption every other term.

Governors and presidents are special cases, in that by winning such a contest you've already punched your lifetime ticket to prosperity. Not true for a term-limited Rep or Senator. They'd need future-career parachutes, and that would be where the special interests influence comes. The idea of Johnny Citizen doing a term-limited shift in the federal government, answering to no one but himself and putting country first, is a nice idea, but not reality. The reality is that people would seek those jobs to leverage federal influence for personal gain afterward. Kind of like they do now, only without the possibility of remaining in the post.

If you want good leaders, let people run for office without the need for mountains of special interests cash to do so, and let them keep those offices even when angry lobbyists want to buy the seat out from under them for one of their pets.

 

[ArlingtonDeac]

Well, there's the devil you know (no term limits), and the devil you don't.

I think the Constitutional intention was for people to serve and then return to their old jobs. But, perhaps that is naive. Assuming corruption, I don't think there are an unlimited supply of $1M jobs to hand out in DC with turnover in the hundreds every election. And if there were, then the corrupt congressman, who can take only one job, is beholden to only one special interest and its issue. He could vote freely on every other. This is still better than our current system where he must cobble together money from multiple special interests to fund his re-election.

We need about 5-10% of the population to vote anti-incumbent to enforce term limits through the voting booth.

Sorry, but IMO you'd design a system where every congressman was essentially new and inexperienced, and therefore likely to need outside guidance. Both Houses would be without any continuity of thought and experience, or institutional memory. The only constant, enduring DC operators would be the lobbyists. Who do you think would run Washington if you constantly cycled in new freshman legislators? They'd need lobbyist money and experience just to understand how anything works. It's basically handing the entire federal system to K Street.

People don't come to DC with a firm understanding of the realities of the legislative process or how to govern. See The Tea Party. If you remove senior operators from the Houses, you create an experience vacuum. That vacuum would get filled by special interests lobbyists who are highly sophisticated in policy matters, have the jobs all the term-limited congressman want, and the money to determine who can get elected. That's not a good development. In fact, it's a nightmare. Or, rather, an exacerbation of our current nightmare.

 

[sailordeac]

You can't win an opinion fight, but I feel pretty comfortable in saying we don't want ambitious part-timers running the federal government. The only experienced pros in DC would be the lobbyists, who would come to run every facet of Washington that they already don't.

What is this part timers?

Besides the bureaucracy runs Washington, much more so than the lobbyists. Companies and money come and go, bureaucracy and offices last forever.

 

[sailordeac]

Arlington, the very word democracy came to be applied by the Greeks to the Athenian system when the positions on the most important decision making body, the Council of 500, became limited to two one year terms. Thus, the very idea of democracy is intimately connected to term limits and has been from the very start. Without term limits you will inevitably create an entitled privileged elite and a very limited democracy, one which is closer to being an aristocracy.

 

[Steels]

I feel term limits are a fool's hope. I think that Reps and Senator's must be legally barred from working in any capacity for 10 years following when they leave office. The reason for this is they will inevitably end up lobbying or employed in kickback jobs they receive for legislation they supported while in Congress. The 10 years off will be a decade of service where their income will be paid for by the government and they will be expected to do community service/volunteer work of a completely apolitical nature and not fund raising. People who are incapable of doing this 10 year off period would then not run for office. Leaders incapable of signing their time away like this cower to a pledge less than what we ask of our armed service.

 

[ArlingtonDeac]

The major problem is corporate influence on governance, not the influence of an entitled elite. This was not a climate faced by the ancient Greeks.

Term limits have almost nothing to do with whether a nation is democratic. In fact, one could argue that limiting the pool of people allowed to hold an office is a much more anti-democratic position.

The root problem in American democracy is campaign finance. If you deal with that systemic flaw, you'd don't need term limits, nor would want them. It would allow you to better impose natural term limits -- voting people out of office.

 

[RJKarl]

What is this part timers?

Besides the bureaucracy runs Washington, much more so than the lobbyists. Companies and money come and go, bureaucracy and offices last forever.

What are you talking about? Exxon, the NRA and Sierra Club will be around a lot longer than anyone in Congress.

 

[ArlingtonDeac]

What is this part timers?

Besides the bureaucracy runs Washington, much more so than the lobbyists. Companies and money come and go, bureaucracy and offices last forever.

Companies and money control the bureaucracies. You seem to think government controls corporate America, when it's the exact opposite. If left unchecked in the forever inexperienced Houses, lobbyists will simply tell the bureaucracy what to do directly.

Let me put it another way-- the problem with government right now isn't how long people serve, it's the type of people who serve and who they must answer to win the office in the first. Imposing term limits won't change the character of the people who get elected, because candidates will still have to agree to be controlled by special interests in order to have to money necessary to get elected. Nothing changes but the faces, expect that the special interests get more confident because no one stay around long enough to really threaten their control or gain personal clout. Nothing changes but the experience level of our legislators.

But if you change how the actual elections process works -- make it possible for a candidate to get elected without being forced to take mountains of special interest money (and the strings attached), or to defeat someone who does have that influence backing them -- then you've accomplished something real. You'll get better legislators, because they can run without selling out. And then you won't be so keen on moving them out after they gain experience.

 

[sailordeac]

You are not going to be able to use campaign finance reform to get rid of the wealthy using their wealth to buy influence in government. It is just being short-sighted to believe so. The wealthy have always bought influence in government and always will. You might as well ban wealth altogether while you are at it. I mean, what's the point of having great power and wealth if you can't use it to influence government?

And before anyone says that well maybe even if we couldn't completely solve the problem, we could lessen the impact of big money on government through campaign finance reform. That's what they said last time, and the problem did not improve.

 

[WFFaithful]

As I posted in the other thread, corporate pork is costing the American taxpayers a lot of money. Are we just to sit back and let this happen?

 

[sailordeac]

Companies and money control the bureaucracies. You seem to think government controls corporate America, when it's the exact opposite. If left unchecked in the forever inexperienced Houses, lobbyists will simply tell the bureaucracy what to do directly.

Let me put it another way-- the problem with government right now isn't how long people serve, it's the type of people who serve and who they must answer to win the office in the first. Imposing term limits won't change the character of the people who get elected, because candidates will still have to agree to be controlled by special interests in order to have to money necessary to get elected. Nothing changes but the faces, expect that the special interests get more confident because no one stay around long enough to really threaten their control or gain personal clout. Nothing changes but the experience level of our legislators.

But if you change how the actual elections process works -- make it possible for a candidate to get elected without being forced to take mountains of special interest money (and the strings attached), or to defeat someone who does have that influence backing them -- then you've accomplished something real. You'll get better legislators, because they can run without selling out. And then you won't be so keen on moving them out after they gain experience.

Let's not leap to conclusions here counselor. I never said that government controls corporate America. It doesn't.

I don't think term limits are a cure all. But they would be a step in the right direction. I think you missed the point that the Greeks understood so well. Term limits are necessary for the people truly to rule. And most democratic systems employ them to some extent, and they don't lead to dens of incompetent corruption.

I hardly think that campaign finance reform would change the sort of people who get elected. Ambitious people who want political power will be elected, just as they were before.

Like I said before, you can set up any system that you like. Unless you ban wealth altogether, the wealthy will use their money to buy influence one way or another. And they will certainly find lawyers to help them do so. Campaign finance reform seems so impractical that, if one were of a cynical mindset, one could easily conclude that its just a distraction to make sure that things stay pretty much the same as they are now.

 

[WFFaithful]

Thank your for displaying the need for publicly funded elections.

 

[RJKarl]

Let's not leap to conclusions here counselor. I never said that government controls corporate America. It doesn't.

I don't think term limits are a cure all. But they would be a step in the right direction. I think you missed the point that the Greeks understood so well. Term limits are necessary for the people truly to rule. And most democratic systems employ them to some extent, and they don't lead to dens of incompetent corruption.

I hardly think that campaign finance reform would change the sort of people who get elected. Ambitious people who want political power will be elected, just as they were before.

Like I said before, you can set up any system that you like. Unless you ban wealth altogether, the wealthy will use their money to buy influence one way or another. And they will certainly find lawyers to help them do so. Campaign finance reform seems so impractical that, if one were of a cynical mindset, one could easily conclude that its just a distraction to make sure that things stay pretty much the same as they are now.

There wasn't a penny of anyone other than the government's spent on either of Reagan's presidential elections. No one could up a penny.

You don't have to ban wealth.

 

[RaleighDevil]

What if we hadn't had an explosion of the administrative state? What if the federal government didn't take it upon itself to insinuate itself into every nook and cranny of American life? What if the lobbyists for big business and the unions went to Washington and were told that it was not within the power of the federal government to do their bidding? What if federalism were enforced and liberals didn't worship at the altar of the Commerce Clause?

 

[RJKarl]

What if Devil woke up not thinking there were black government helicopters everywhere?

 

[ArlingtonDeac]

You are not going to be able to use campaign finance reform to get rid of the wealthy using their wealth to buy influence in government. It is just being short-sighted to believe so. The wealthy have always bought influence in government and always will. You might as well ban wealth altogether while you are at it. I mean, what's the point of having great power and wealth if you can't use it to influence government?

And before anyone says that well maybe even if we couldn't completely solve the problem, we could lessen the impact of big money on government through campaign finance reform. That's what they said last time, and the problem did not improve.

Nothing fixes everything, but if you limit the influence of money on elections, the influence of money on elections will be limited.

What last time? We needed publicly-funded campaigns, or capped spending. To what were you referring?

 

[JuanWellman]

Hijos! No conosco un "senate dem", pero me gusta mucho el "pussy". Aqui es mis picturas favoritas del "pussy"

Todo el amor,

Juan W

 

[WFFaithful]

What if we hadn't had an explosion of the administrative state? What if the federal government didn't take it upon itself to insinuate itself into every nook and cranny of American life? What if the lobbyists for big business and the unions went to Washington and were told that it was not within the power of the federal government to do their bidding? What if federalism were enforced and liberals didn't worship at the altar of the Commerce Clause?

I see you've bought into the deflection away from the fact that corporations are stealing billions of dollars from US taxpayers.

 

[WFFaithful]

What if we hadn't had an explosion of the administrative state? What if the federal government didn't take it upon itself to insinuate itself into every nook and cranny of American life? What if the lobbyists for big business and the unions went to Washington and were told that it was not within the power of the federal government to do their bidding? What if federalism were enforced and liberals didn't worship at the altar of the Commerce Clause?

I see you've bought into the deflection away from the fact that corporations are stealing billions of dollars from US taxpayers.