Sunday, March 28, 2010

TERM LIMITS...A MUST! By Wayne Pearson

LIMITING TERMS OF CONGRESS MEMBERS IS A MUST
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT IS REQUIRED
YOU CAN HELP

My earlier blog made the case for firing “for cause” each and everyone of our 535 U.S. Senators and Representatives. We believe that, for the most part, they are incompetent, arrogant, fiscally irresponsible, in some cases corrupt and just plain insubordinate. Lord Acton stated it correctly: “Power Corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The way to limit the power of the elected officials is to reduce the time they have power. TERM LIMITS is the way to accomplish this. Since we cannot count on good faith to have them volunteer to leave after a sensible period in office, we must have a concrete agreement. This means a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT to limit their time in office.

After the four terms of Franklin Roosevelt, the Congress and States moved swiftly to put in place the twenty second amendment to the Constitution, enacted on February 21, 1951 which limits the President’s term in office to two four year terms. Now the office of the President has to change key personnel every eight years and sometimes every four years when we, the voters, boot one out.
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When our elected officials of the Federal Government take the largess of the Nation’s citizens through taxation and then dole funds out to specific localities to curry the favor and votes of their constituents, We citizens are corrupted, as well. How often have you heard the Party leaders caution voters to keep a particular Senator of Representative in office because: “Of all the wonderful things he does for our locale or state”? Does Senator Byrd come to mind? This practice is abominable, is morally just plain wrong. And must be abolished!

With the speed of change in the introduction and application of new technologies, older elected persons have more difficulty keeping up. This can lead to their just abandoning any attempt to understand the new technologies and/or not applying them if they do understand them. In other words they are can become out-of date, obsolete and thus inadequate to the needs of the task. In the world of private enterprise, they would be asked to take early retirement or would be outright fired. Moreover, if such an employee were found with its hand in the till, Well…..!!!

There is a website, Tenure Corrupts.Com that lists the some of the pros and cons of term limits some of which are incorporated here:

ADANTAGES OF TERM LIMITS:
Downgrades seniority, favors meritocracy
The higher turnover of office holders would bring more new ideas and energy.
Increases competition, encourages new challengers.
Builds a ‘citizen’ Congress, drives out career politicians.
Breaks ties to special interests.
Reduces “pork” which is inappropriate and immoral
Reduces the amount of time the elected person would have to spend raising money so more time could be spent on the people’s issues and needs.
Improves tendency to vote on principle. Office holders could make more honest decisions in their last term.
Encourages lower taxes, smaller government, and greater voter participation. Creates a natural reduction in wasteful federal spending.
Gets back to what Founders called “rotation in office.” Gets reelection rates back to near 50%, versus the current 99%.

DISADVANTAGES OF TERM LIMITS
Eliminates good politicians along with the bad.
Loss of knowledge and experience.
Increases the power of staff, lobbies, and bureaucracy.
Reduces range of voter choice.
NOW IS THE TIME!! And the time is ripe! The populace is furious with the excesses of the members of the Senate and the House, and the Tea Partiers and similar organizations are rallied and active. Therefore, this force could be and should be directed and focused like a laser on the issue of term limits. Each of us can help by talking to our Tea Partier friends to encourage them in that direction.

HOW WOULD IT WORK?

Here is a short list of actions to make a Constitutional Amendment Happen.

Work to replace each and every one of the legislators who must run for office this November 2010.
Chose only office seekers who are amenable to limiting terms
Make those office seekers sign a document that clearly states that they will be willing to introduce and vote for an amendment to the Constitution which limits terms.
Have the document dated and notarized and made public.
Support the Tea Partiers to keep the public fired up about this issue during the several years that it will take to get the legislation through Congress and get the States to ratify the Amendment.

Saturday, March 6, 2010