#18 FIRST THINGS FIRST

www.tenurecorrupts.com

Back in 1770 a cynical historian wrote: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over lousy fiscal policy, and is always followed by a dictatorship.”

Of course there is a certain amount of wisdom in that gloomy forecast, but I don't believe that the outcome is a foregone conclusion. However, it does illustrate that the reason we need Congressional Term Limits today is precisely that careerist politicians are driving us in the direction the cynic predicted.

When politicians are primarily focussed on reelection, they don’t think about the best policies for the country, but rather on the ways to get reelected. And one of the principle ways is to vote for ‘pork’ for their constituencies. And they will vote for this pork even when the country is staggering under huge debt burdens, and in spite of large current deficits. And they do it reciprocally (“You vote for my pork,and I’ll vote for yours”) so that the evil is compounded. And to hell with attempts to balance the budget.

Much, if not all of this pork is sneaked into enormous, complex appropriation bills, hidden from public scrutiny. If any are exposed, the pols can always fabricate plausible reasons why the item is vital to his district, and besides, “It is really such a miniscule fraction of the multi-trillion dollar budget, that it needn’t concern anyone!”

Multiply this position by 535 lying, hypocritical politicians, and you’re talking about real money!

Commonsense tells us that term limited politicians, or a citizen Congress, who expect to return to the private sector, would be far less inclined to say “to hell with the budget”. Maybe not all of them, but a large majority of them. And that’s all we would need to create a fresh mindset in the Congress to turn the country around.

Most of these ordinary citizen legislators will have come to Congress to do a job, do it right, and then leave. Because that’s what ordinary citizens do! And many of them would, during their tenure, educate their constituencies on the proper and ethical use of political power.

It seems to me that all the political organizations out there who are pushing truly legitimate and worthwhile political issues, and spending lots of money to get their points across to the public (and to bribe their Congresspeople), would find it a lot easier to succeed if we had a ’citizen congress’ by FIRST getting a Congressional Term Limits Amendment (CTLA) enacted.

There is no doubt in my mind that a Congress made up of relatively new people, untainted by excessive tenure, would have a remarkably fresh outlook on the issues of the day, and be inclined to use much more commonsense in resolving those issues. And let's not kid ourselves, being a Congressperson is NOT brain surgery or rocket science!

On the other hand, it appears that many of the most vigorous opponents of term limits, other than careerist professsional polticians, are precisely those organizations which are called ‘special interests’, and it is those organizations who have the most intimately corrupt relationships with the entrenched "tenured' politicians of the modern day Congress. These are the people we have to beat.

Our wonderfully diverse and free political system is made up of all kinds of people who are tugging at ‘the powers that be’ in Congress for good laws and bad ones (increasing or decreasing the size of government, balancing or unbalancing the budget, raising or lowering taxes, etc.). We need a Congress that is responsive to the voters in a thoughtful and responsible way, consistent with what is best for the country longterm, not with an eye to the next election. A term limited citizen Congress will do that.

So I say “Let’s do first things first! Let’s establish Congressional Term Limits!”

Nelson Lee Walker, Saratoga, CA
www.tenurecorrupts.com