Term Limits

[AllyRose]

Rand mentioned term limits for members of Congress during his speech, though he isn't the first to suggest it. It's definitely something that gets thrown out a lot during the election season...

What do you guys think?

 

[Adre]

No, I'm for freedom of choice.

 

[Sean Renaud]

I think term limits ultimately do more harm than good. It forces you to have people who don't know the machine because they haven't been involved with it very long into office, the election cycle never truly ends which forces more money into the system. The only "upside" is that incumbants tend to win because people generally have an 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' attitude towards government employees. But if it ain't broke why fix it? You've no gaurantee or even reason to believe really that you'll get something better than what you had previously, then there's all the above I mentioned.

But lots of people seem to think that getting fresh blood into the system more regularly is a good idea. And to some extent it. We could in a hypotetical universe see Congress get filled with people who stay for life and literally have a Congress with no people with any experience because they all died/retired at the same time. I don't think that would happen but I've read that plenty of businesses end up with problems like that. Where the guys on top stay forever, nobody beneath them gets promoted so they either leave or you have someone who's been there for twenty years and is still doing his original job and either way when it's time to move up there are too many openings at the top and too few qualified people. (Which is one more reason to have recommended if not forced retirement age.) But hey, the world isn't perfect.

 

[Setanta84]

Term limits are generally bad, illiberal ideas.

For candidates, there is always a learning curve for how to do things once they become policymakers--particularly if they don't have prior legal or policy experience. Term limits effectively force people out once they get the hang of things and can actually be good at what they do.

And there are generally cynical reasons for people wanting to do this.

Sure, they SAY they want to keep people from viewing politics as a career and not public service/avoid corruption--but then these same people are dead set against things like rigorous campaign finance reform or keeping people from taking jobs or money from people who do business with the legislative body they are members of within x number of years of service. That is, they seem wholly unconcerned with corruption outside the issue of term limits.

If you look at how term limits for presidents came about, it was basically a reaction to FDR. For one time in our history, we got a fantastically rich dude in office and he turned out to be a "class traitor"--that is, a populist or actual little d democrat--and was wildly popular as a result. So, the solution was to make sure that mere popularity in a representative democracy couldn't keep you in office indefinitely.

In general, I think it's the way Corporate America likes to keep our bribed officials utterly dependent upon them. "Oh, sweetie, don't worry that pretty little head worrying about actually writing laws. Here's one our legal department wrote. Just have your staff reformat and slightly reword it and sign it like a good bimbo. Dinner and drinks at 9!"

 

[KingOrfeo]

If we are to have term limits, they should not be lifetime limits. E.g., you serve one term in a given office, sit out the next term, but then you are free to run for that same office again. That eliminates the electoral advantage of incumbency without depriving us of a class of experienced pols. We do need professional politicians; an assembly of "citizen legislators" would not be a legislature, it would be a focus group, unqualified to do anything but vote on executive-branch proposals.

 

[Liar]

"Throw the bums out!" is a seductive notion. But everytime I've seen bums thrown out in anti-incumbent waves, they have been replaced by new bums who have to be re-taught how the Xerox works.

 

[Sean Renaud]

"Throw the bums out!" is a seductive notion. But everytime I've seen bums thrown out in anti-incumbent waves, they have been replaced by new bums who have to be re-taught how the Xerox works.

That's not true. In 2010 you saw bums who probably could work the Xerox they just adamantly refused to do so in the hopes of hurting OBama as much as possible.

 

[sr71plt]

Can't see anyone managing this. Voters keep voting their reps into office because longevity means more money back into the district. (There was a good reason by the liberal Democratic governor of Virginia moaned over the primary loss of the conservative Republican Va. congressman Cantor.) More would have to be changed than just a cap on being in office.

 

[Setanta84]

That's not true. In 2010 you saw bums who probably could work the Xerox they just adamantly refused to do so in the hopes of hurting OBama as much as possible.

When you look at the 2010 election, it's pretty clear Obama wanted to lose the midterms. The ACA and everything about it is a big part of why the public turned on him and either sat that election out or voted against the incumbent party--but that's a whole other subject.

First, he hoarded ALL the money the DNC brought in--because they had stupidly turned over all their political campaign assets to his people after buying the hype that they were election geniuses and thus put him in the position to do this--for the 2012 campaign and basically told the DCCC and DSCCC to go fuck themselves.

Then, when the enlightened idiots at OFA ran the disastrous coordinated campaign in the general, it's abundantly clear they weren't trying to ID and mobilize midterm voters--they were hijacking Party resources to maintain the 2008 IDs for his reelection campaign. And extremely blatantly.

Losing the midterms wasn't just rooted in his megalomaniacal selfishness and the Stalin/Mao-like cult of personality built around him that is OFA.

No, if you look at the guy's budgets and who he appoints to make policy recommendations to Congress, his true face isn't that different from Boehner and Ryan.

The main policy goal of his entire term--literally from the Inauguration Day 2009 on--wasn't the ACA. It was the "Grand Bargain." In fact, the sequestration maneuver he now pretends to be an enemy of was put forth in the hopes of ginning up a manufactured crisis to rush the grand bargain through a GOP controlled House and a spineless Senate delegation before the lowly proles realized he was gutting what he refers to--and almost no other Democrat does--as "entitlements."

The Tea Party fanatics actually saved Social Security by making Boehner's term as Speaker a joke. If they had fallen in line after they swept the 2010 midterms, all our grandmothers would be eating out of catfood containers and offering to blow people in exchange for heart medication while Obama slept soundly thinking of how big of a trust fund his good friend Pete Peterson was going to give Sasha and Malia once he left office.

And this part of Obama's duplicitous nature is on full display again. Now that the GOP has both houses of Congress, he pays a ton of lip service to actual Democratic ideas that are now safely impossible to turn into actual laws. But what does he DO, rather than say, these days? He's trying to rush the TPP through without even giving Congress a chance to look at it--which basically overtly gives multinational corporations the direct ability to dictate our economic policy without having to bribe our elected officials first.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

If I ruled the world elected people would get the same pay and benefits as enlisted military personnel. E1 for first term Rep. Half pay retirement after 20 years service.

If you wanna read something embarrassing get hold of a book about Valley Forge. Washington and his band of life's losers, plus a few Euro sergeants, teenagers (Lafayette) endured hunger and cold while the Continental Congress quarreled over new carriages and better accommodations for themselves. They were in Philadelphia with most of the American officer corps fraternizing with the Brits. Nothing has changed.

 

[sr71plt]

If you wanna read something embarrassing get hold of a book about Valley Forge.

Which book?

 

[Sean Renaud]

Pretty much everything in that post needs citation Setanta cus it smells of bullshit.

 

[luvslingerie200]

One thing I would like to see is the length of a term for a congressman increased. At the current two year term, they start campaigning immediately after winning election. Governing is not the highest concern

 

[Setanta84]

One thing I would like to see is the length of a term for a congressman increased. At the current two year term, they start campaigning immediately after winning election. Governing is not the highest concern

They don't do that because the term is too short, they do that because money runs everything. A US Rep spends most of his time soliciting donations for his Party's committees and his re-election campaign, not drafting laws or talking to constituents.

If you have a problem with perpetual campaigning, you want stricter campaign finance and election law, not longer terms.

 

[luvslingerie200]

They don't do that because the term is too short, they do that because money runs everything. A US Rep spends most of his time soliciting donations for his Party's committees and his re-election campaign, not drafting laws or talking to constituents.

If you have a problem with perpetual campaigning, you want stricter campaign finance and election law, not longer terms.

I would absolutely agree with that.

 

[Wrong Element]

I'd go the other way, and repeal term limits on the presidency.

 

[Setanta84]

I'd go the other way, and repeal term limits on the presidency.

In principle, I agree with this--but, in reality, for every Roosevelt or LBJ, there are a handful of whores for money, stupid people, and combos thereof, e.g. Truman, Ford, Reagan, Clinton, GWB, and Obama all being one, the other, or both.

 

[KingOrfeo]

In principle, I agree with this--but, in reality, for every Roosevelt or LBJ, there are a handful of whores for money, stupid people, and combos thereof, e.g. Truman, Ford, Reagan, Clinton, GWB, and Obama all being one, the other, or both.

C'mon, Truman?!

 

[Boxlicker101]

Some states, including CA have passed term limits, usually through the initiative or referendum process but gotten shot down by SCOTUS. It would take an amendment to the US Constitution to bring them about.

There is some support there for Congressional term limits, but I fear there are too many career pols who would never agree to give up their places at the public trough. http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2014/11/18/term-limits-congress-brat-sasse/

 

[sr71plt]

Some states, including CA have passed term limits, usually through the initiative or referendum process but gotten shot down by SCOTUS. It would take an amendment to the US Constitution to bring them about.

Well, yes, the states have no business setting limits individually on federal positions.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

Can someone articulate the specific problem that terms limits are intended to solve?

 

[Setanta84]

C'mon, Truman?!

Truman is a case of both. He was a henpecked/pussywhipped cretin, fucking moron, and lifelong failure until a wealthy donor wanted to show that he could literally install anyone he wished into any office he wished. He picked Truman as his candidate--the point being Truman was the human equivalent of that guy giving a literal yellow dog that much money.

 

[sr71plt]

Truman was also that Washington outsider and "his own man" that a lot of folks keep saying is what we need in Washington. He's gotten pretty good marks in recent years on the job he did.

Of course he wasn't the superman that Setanta84 is--but then no one else is except maybe all the others of us who spend time jabbering about politics on a porn Web site rather than taking the heat of running for political office.

 

[Setanta84]

Truman was also that Washington outsider and "his own man" that a lot of folks keep saying is what we need in Washington. He's gotten pretty good marks in recent years on the job he did.

Of course he wasn't the superman that Setanta84 is--but then no one else is except maybe all the others of us who spend time jabbering about politics on a porn Web site rather than taking the heat of running for political office.

Says the man who spends all his time on a porn site talking about his sales and mocking other writers. Of course, when you're a delusional piece of shit closet case, I guess the only ass you can get is from similar men on a site such as this. So, kudos on knowing your role, you pathetic degenerate.

 

[ShySubSara]

It seems to me we already have term limits...elections every 2 years for reps and 6 years for senators. The problem is that usually nobody cares enough to vote them out. Congress has low approval but everyone seems to love their own reps enough to vote them back in.

Term limits are a straw dog thrown out to try to win votes; but even those who say they are in favor of it change their mind when it comes to their own limits.

Good theory but does not work in practice, which seems to be a common thread for a lot of political ideas.