Congressional/Senate Term Limits

Rumple Foreskin

Ive got an easy way to fix our problem. Put term limits on senate/congress members and also make it a 45k a year job. This constantly puts new blood in the system with new ideas. If you did that you would also see who are really in politics for the people and not the benefits. Being a politician should not be a glamorous job and thats something we need to change immediately.

ducklips

Senators serve six year staggered terms so that new senators can be elected every two years. I don't see the problem with this. You can not effectively make long term change by constantly changing faces or names or ideas. ( I see this every two years on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation) I think what is needed more is a wider range of diverse people interested and qualified for these positions. It tends to be upper class citizens with silver spoons shoved up their asses. The same people get elected because no one else is vying for that job. I do agree with the pay change, an average of 174,000 per year is too much and unnecessary.

Darth Beaver

I agree with the term limits 100% and have been saying tha for over 25 years. By limiting the house and senate to 2 terms you would seriously curtail the ability for members to form power cliques. This would serve to slow down the corruption that results form such power bases.

However I strongly disagree with both of you on the salary issue for the following reasons. About two years ago Singapore, which was rife with political, instituted sweeping reforms in the salaries of elected officials.

It was reasoned that low or even average salaries were creating an environment in which corruption could thrive as low payed officials are nor likely to steal than higher paid officials.

It was also theorized, on the part of the reform movement, that if elected positions offered a much higher salary they would attract "a wider range of diverse people interested and qualified for these positions".

And finally it was assumed that a person being paid X amount per year would more likely to succumb to the temptation of corruption than one being paid X*10 or even X*20 as the person with the higher salary would stand to lose if caught.

Now, in less than three years, Singapore has moved from one of the most corrupt governments in the region and perhaps even the world to one of the least corrupted governments in Southeast Asia. Singapore is at the top for salaries, and number 2 for the ratio of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per person with an average annual salary of $2,183,518.00.

This high rate of compensation has turned Singapore around on dime in just about as much time as Obama has been in office for the three reasons covered earlier.

• Lower paid officials can be bribed for a lot less money than higher paid ones. This means that those who wish to spread around bribe assets have to either dig deeper into their pockets or cover less ground.

• An average salary of over $2 million has attracted much brighter minds to the political arena. As a result people who used to apply their superior earning skills in the private sector have now entered the public sector in Singapore. With a "new and improved" class of politician the entire government is now working more efficiently and being ran by people who don't want to lose a great paying gig. When you under pay elected officials they know that the gig will not last forever so they line up their ducks while in office by making corrupt moves to scratch the back of those who put them in office and can benefit them the most after the leave office.

The elected officials who are enjoying their average $2 million salary know that if they do a decent job and keep their noses clean after one or two terms they can be set for life without the need to worry if they will be "caught" and ruined for life

So I say pay the members of the house and the senate $10,000,000.00 per year and limit them to two terms just like the presidency. This would attract some of the brightest minds in the country and by doing so reduce the risk of corruption by adding a plethora of new faces to the circus that are not already bought and paid for before they run for office. It would also make a person think long and hard about breaking the law and risk the loss of $40 to $80 million dollars over the next 4 to 8 years.


P.S. Please excuse this post if it ran on a bit and seemed less that coherent. I am typing with one arm and a bit loopy on the pain meds from my rotator cuff surgery on the 30th.