• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Would setting term limits and wages tied to average wage help motivate congress?

Would setting term limits and wages tied to average wage help motivate congress?

  • Yes, it would reduce corruption and ensure that congress was more focused on the American people

    Votes: 12 44.4%

  • No, it would have no effect/it would change things for the worse

    Votes: 9 33.3%

  • Other (please explain)

    Votes: 6 22.2%
  • Total voters
    27
conservativeguy said:
I am against term limits and I am against setting the salaries at lower levels than they are today as a means to reduce corruption in congress.

The problem with corruption isn't the length of time in office or the pay, the problem comes from elected politicians having too much power. Take away most of the power and the corruption will recede. I would enact the following changes to reduce the power of those in congress.....

1) ban anything that looks like an earmark. Every single bill should be vetted by the congressional committees and made part of the public record.

2) every bill MUST be made available to the public for a minimum of 72 hours prior to its vote.

3) every tax/fee/surcharge increase must receive a 2/3's majority vote in order to advance.

4) the legislative calendar should be cut down to six months, other than national emergencies.

5) both houses of congress, and the congressional office buildings, should be closed for six months and the elected officials should be required to return to their states and live with the people they are supposed to represent

6) the personal calendars of every elected official should be 100% transparent and a detailed record of what each politicians did on each day should also be 100% transparent........I see absolutely no reason why we the voters do not know what are OUR employees (congress) are doing when they are working on our nickle.

7) every bill should have extensive footnotes for the person or persons that constructed the language in a bill. This means every word should be traced back to a person(s) that proposed the language.

8) ban all paid-for trips for congress. It makes me sick to my stomach when I read about the extensive boondoggles members of congress enjoy. If they need in formation on a specific country, pick up the damn phone or use the computer to talk to knowledgeable people. The notion a member of congress has to fly to Country X (which just so happens to have great beaches or wonderful restaurants or spectacular ski resorts) is BS.

9) there should not be ANY pension benefits for any member of congress

I could add more to this list but will stop here, I need to go string up more xmas lights and try to forget about the massive clusterfork in DC.
Click to expand...

You have some great and though provoking adeas here. Let's see...

1) Agreed. I've said for a long time that every piece of legislation should be restricted to a single issue. No more fire stations for Montana in a bill dealing with hurricane emergency relief in Florida, for example. If the fire station is needed and worthy it can stand on its own merits.

2) Agreed, though I might make it a week.

3) Not sure. 66.7% seems too high to me, though I could go for 55%. 50%+1 doesn't really bother me, either.

4) Agreed.

5) I stop short at "required". I'm not in favor of restricting a person's whereabouts like that. Plus, these days a person can effectively work away from the home or office. Maybe require a minimum numbers of days in their home states/districts and let them choose which days.

6) Not sure about this one, either. While they are technically 'on call' 24/7, they are entitled to some private time as well.

7) I've never heard this before, but i like it.

8) I like this. I would except trips to and from Washington DC at the beginning and end of their sessions, though. That is legitimate. Anything else is on their dime.

And while we're at it, let's ban governors and presidents from touring disaster areas. It's just a glorified photo op and they're only getting in the way. They can still get effective reports, and issue opinions and direction, all while staying out of the way and letting disaster relief people do their work without tripping over unnecessary Secret Service people and their various entourages.

9) Disagree. Just because they are in public office does not mean they should forgo legitimate estate planning for themselves and their families. I'd let them have a pension that operates like a 401k (but not a private 401k to avoid conflict of interest), and subject to all rules and limitations that private 401k plans are allowed. Then, they'd be required to roll it over into a private IRA within 90 days of leaving office.
 
radcen said:
And while we're at it, let's ban governors and presidents from touring disaster areas. It's just a glorified photo op and they're only getting in the way. They can still get effective reports, and issue opinions and direction, all while staying out of the way and letting disaster relief people do their work without tripping over unnecessary Secret Service people and their various entourages.
Click to expand...

Yet if they don't do it, they get bashed for it. People want the photo ops. Even when they complain about them.
 
misterman said:
Yet if they don't do it, they get bashed for it. People want the photo ops. Even when they complain about them.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, I know you're right. I can see the old lady being interviewed on the news now...

"He didn't even care enough to come down and see what was gong on!"

To which my response would be, "Well, what the hell was HE going to physically do for you?"
 
radcen said:
You have some great and though provoking adeas here. Let's see...

1) Agreed. I've said for a long time that every piece of legislation should be restricted to a single issue. No more fire stations for Montana in a bill dealing with hurricane emergency relief in Florida, for example. If the fire station is needed and worthy it can stand on its own merits.

2) Agreed, though I might make it a week.

3) Not sure. 66.7% seems too high to me, though I could go for 55%. 50%+1 doesn't really bother me, either.

4) Agreed.

5) I stop short at "required". I'm not in favor of restricting a person's whereabouts like that. Plus, these days a person can effectively work away from the home or office. Maybe require a minimum numbers of days in their home states/districts and let them choose which days.

6) Not sure about this one, either. While they are technically 'on call' 24/7, they are entitled to some private time as well.

7) I've never heard this before, but i like it.

8) I like this. I would except trips to and from Washington DC at the beginning and end of their sessions, though. That is legitimate. Anything else is on their dime.

And while we're at it, let's ban governors and presidents from touring disaster areas. It's just a glorified photo op and they're only getting in the way. They can still get effective reports, and issue opinions and direction, all while staying out of the way and letting disaster relief people do their work without tripping over unnecessary Secret Service people and their various entourages.

9) Disagree. Just because they are in public office does not mean they should forgo legitimate estate planning for themselves and their families. I'd let them have a pension that operates like a 401k (but not a private 401k to avoid conflict of interest), and subject to all rules and limitations that private 401k plans are allowed. Then, they'd be required to roll it over into a private IRA within 90 days of leaving office.
Click to expand...
I think you and I are on the same page. I like your suggestions. The way to fight corruption is to eliminate the reason why people try to corrupt congress, make congress and the individual congressman/woman less important.
 
haymarket said:
No it would not. 34 should not be able to trump 66 anywhere but Wonderland at a Mad Hatter tea party.
Click to expand...
. Never been to that party but will defer to your knowledge. I see no reason why our tax and spending policies should be all over the board. I think the volatility in those policies does nothing but depress the willingness of investors to deploy capital and take risks.
 
misterman said:
If you make this "the voters are stupid and need to be protected from themselves" argument, it means you don't believe in democracy at all. And it means you believe you're special, in other words, you're arrogant.
Click to expand...

Damn straight I'm arrogant. So what? We need an educated electorate who can vote intelligently. We do not currently have that. It's clear when we have large numbers of people who go to the polls that they vote for asinine things that only benefit them, while trying to screw everyone else over. That's no way to run a country. You could have Hitler running for President and if he said the right things, he'd get elected in a heartbeat and we all know that's the truth.
 
radcen said:
Getting too close to a dictatorship, IMO.
Click to expand...

There was a time when we had politicians who ran for office to serve the public good. What happened to those people? Tell me how to get them back and I'll be more than happy to change my mind. So long as it's all a bunch of power-hungry, self-serving slimeballs in office, no thanks.
 
misterman said:
So if you don't know if you are, you probably shouldn't be going around saying others are.
Click to expand...

Why not? I am practically by definition more objective about other people than I am about myself.
 
Viktyr Korimir said:
If that is indeed the case-- and I certainly agree with you that it is-- I still don't see how term limits are going to improve the situation. If we can't trust the voters not to re-elect old scumbags, how can we trust them not to just elect shiny new scumbags to replace them? How is electing shiny new scumbags every couple of years better than re-electing the same old scumbags year after year?
Click to expand...

Who do you think will do more damage?

A.A scumbag who has been on in office for 10-20 plus years with lots of influence and seniority, who knows the ropes and can possibly be elected to more terms.

B.A scumbag fresh off the street,does not know the ropes, just elected and only has the chance of getting elected to one more term in office and when his or her terms are up there will be the chance that scumbag will actually being replaced by someone decent.


I do not think term limits will completely eliminate corruption but it will help minimize it. A lot of illnesses and diseases can easily be nipped in the butt if they are caught early.
 
jamesrage said:
A.A scumbag who has been on in office for 10-20 plus years with lots of influence and seniority, who knows the ropes and can possibly be elected to more terms.

B.A scumbag fresh off the street,does not know the ropes, just elected and only has the chance of getting elected to one more term in office and when his or her terms are up there will be the chance that scumbag will actually being replaced by someone decent.
Click to expand...

Scumbag A, because he has more time. But... you're comparing one scumbag A to one scumbag B, when the reality is that you would have ten scumbag Bs for every one scumbag A. And in that case, I absolutely believe that scumbag A is the better option.
 
Cephus said:
Damn straight I'm arrogant. So what?
Click to expand...

Because someone even more arrogant than you might come along and decide YOU shouldn't vote.

Also because arrogant people are jerks in general.
 
Viktyr Korimir said:
Why not? I am practically by definition more objective about other people than I am about myself.
Click to expand...

Sure, but so is everyone else. Why do you think you are entitled to make the rest of the world revolve around you?
 
Viktyr Korimir said:
Scumbag A, because he has more time. But... you're comparing one scumbag A to one scumbag B, when the reality is that you would have ten scumbag Bs for every one scumbag A. And in that case, I absolutely believe that scumbag A is the better option.
Click to expand...



You may not have ten scumbag Bs for ever scumbag A because there is the chance that when scumbag B can't run again a decent or semi-decent politician will take his place.And even if you got ten scumbag Bs for every scumbag A they still couldn't do as much damage because each scumbag Bhas to re-learn what the previous scumbag B knew in order to exploit the system, this means they end up doing less damage.
 
jamesrage said:
You may not have ten scumbag Bs for ever scumbag A because there is the chance that when scumbag B can't run again a decent or semi-decent politician will take his place.And even if you got ten scumbag Bs for every scumbag A they still couldn't do as much damage because each scumbag Bhas to re-learn what the previous scumbag B knew in order to exploit the system, this means they end up doing less damage.
Click to expand...

Agreed. By keeping these lifetime scumbags out of office, you know that eventually, every one who leaves office is going to have to deal with the ramifications of what they caused. hopefully that will at least make them think about what they're doing. Secondly, we need to remove the reasons a lot of these idiots get into office: money and power. They won't be in office long enough to gain any real power and we shouldn't pay them all that well either. In fact, I'd be happy not to give them a paycheck at all, simply to cover their expenses during the time they are in office. Pay the mortgage on their normal house, give their families a government credit card to cover living expenses, pay for their apartment in Washington D.C., etc. Maybe give them a small cash allowance per year. When they get out, they had the same kind of life they had before they went in, but they certainly didn't get rich doing it. Politics ought to be about serving the public good, not feathering your own nest.
 
The length of term of a member of Congress is already limited by the US Constitution. We already have term limits. Two years for an elected House member and six years for a US senator. Then their term ends.
 
Cephus said:
Agreed. By keeping these lifetime scumbags out of office, you know that eventually, every one who leaves office is going to have to deal with the ramifications of what they caused. hopefully that will at least make them think about what they're doing. Secondly, we need to remove the reasons a lot of these idiots get into office: money and power. They won't be in office long enough to gain any real power and we shouldn't pay them all that well either. In fact, I'd be happy not to give them a paycheck at all, simply to cover their expenses during the time they are in office. Pay the mortgage on their normal house, give their families a government credit card to cover living expenses, pay for their apartment in Washington D.C., etc. Maybe give them a small cash allowance per year. When they get out, they had the same kind of life they had before they went in, but they certainly didn't get rich doing it. Politics ought to be about serving the public good, not feathering your own nest.
Click to expand...
Let me argue with your position here by comparing it to a 'normal' work environment from my experience as a high level engineer/architect in the computer industry. The similarity of the computer industry and what our politicians are up against is in complexity and rate of change that result in the necessity to change and the change has to be supported by changing the operational rules, similar to laws. The similarity goes even further with marketing and sales behaving like lobbyists. If we have the manufacturing engineers, purchasing staff, assembly staff, security staff etc. sharing equally in setting our direction with the highest level technologists and business managers failures would follow quickly. So, I'm sure you can see where this is going. Therefore, I want to be able to elect people with intellect and ability to solve new problems with new rules that are occurring because the old rules are not working. These people often have been successful earning money legitimately, a net worth of 100k to 500k, investments, a vacation home, etc. I don't want them to have to give this up to if they change careers to politician. So, again, who do you want solving our problems?
 
radcen said:
I was being facetious in my post. Anyway, of course there would be loopholes. There will always be loopholes in literally any legislation. There would be loopholes with term limits. Big enough to drive a truck through, as you state. There is no such thing as perfect legislation.
Click to expand...

I disagree. A constitutional amendment specifying term limits would be fairly straightforward, just as it is for the presidency. For example:

1. No person shall be elected to the United States House of Representative more than three times, and no person who has held the office of Representative for more than one year of a term to which some other person was elected Representative shall be elected to the office of Representative more than twice.

2. No person shall be elected to the United States Senate more than twice, and no person who has held the office of Senator for more than three years of a term to which some other person was elected Senator shall be elected to the office of Senator more than once.

Pretty straightforward IMO. If there are any loopholes in that, they're the kind of loopholes that are easily fixable with minor wording changes. An amendment regulating campaign finance reform, on the other hand, would have lots of loopholes. As we've seen with the McCain-Feingold Act, regulating one kind of campaign spending simply gives rise to another kind, such as 527 organizations. That's fine for ordinary legislation...you simply pass a new piece of legislation to close the loopholes. But you can't really do that with a constitutional amendment. The amendment process is simply too cumbersome to amend the Constitution every time some new loophole in campaign finance law is discovered IMO.
 
Kandahar said:
I disagree. A constitutional amendment specifying term limits would be fairly straightforward, just as it is for the presidency. For example:

1. No person shall be elected to the United States House of Representative more than three times, and no person who has held the office of Representative for more than one year of a term to which some other person was elected Representative shall be elected to the office of Representative more than twice.

2. No person shall be elected to the United States Senate more than twice, and no person who has held the office of Senator for more than three years of a term to which some other person was elected Senator shall be elected to the office of Senator more than once.

Pretty straightforward IMO. If there are any loopholes in that, they're the kind of loopholes that are easily fixable with minor wording changes. An amendment regulating campaign finance reform, on the other hand, would have lots of loopholes. As we've seen with the McCain-Feingold Act, regulating one kind of campaign spending simply gives rise to another kind, such as 527 organizations. That's fine for ordinary legislation...you simply pass a new piece of legislation to close the loopholes. But you can't really do that with a constitutional amendment. The amendment process is simply too cumbersome to amend the Constitution every time some new loophole in campaign finance law is discovered IMO.
Click to expand...
You're right. We disagree. All this does is limit time of service. It does nothing to address the reasons why longer terms of service are the problem.
 
Cephus said:
Agreed. By keeping these lifetime scumbags out of office, you know that eventually, every one who leaves office is going to have to deal with the ramifications of what they caused. hopefully that will at least make them think about what they're doing. Secondly, we need to remove the reasons a lot of these idiots get into office: money and power. They won't be in office long enough to gain any real power and we shouldn't pay them all that well either. In fact, I'd be happy not to give them a paycheck at all, simply to cover their expenses during the time they are in office. Pay the mortgage on their normal house, give their families a government credit card to cover living expenses, pay for their apartment in Washington D.C., etc. Maybe give them a small cash allowance per year. When they get out, they had the same kind of life they had before they went in, but they certainly didn't get rich doing it. Politics ought to be about serving the public good, not feathering your own nest.
Click to expand...
Essentially, instead of attracting good people, we'd be attracting incompetent people. Any person with an ounce of drive and ability would run away from a scenario like this.
 
radcen said:
You're right. We disagree. All this does is limit time of service. It does nothing to address the reasons why longer terms of service are the problem.
Click to expand...

As I see it, the primary reasons that longer terms of service are problems are: 1) A given politician will be running for reelection more often than not, and therefore will need to raise campaign funds from lobbyists. 2) The longer a politician serves in Congress, the more insulated they become from their constituents and the more they adopt the culture of Congress itself...which is rarely a good thing.

Term limits would address both of those problems. They'd reduce the likelihood of a given politician needing to raise money for his reelection war chest, and they'd increase the turnover rate so that legislators are more in tune with their constituents and have less time to develop a Congress culture of their own.
 
radcen said:
Essentially, instead of attracting good people, we'd be attracting incompetent people. Any person with an ounce of drive and ability would run away from a scenario like this.
Click to expand...

We're attracting incompetent people now, just dishonest ones. When do you think we're going to see any good politicians?
 
Cephus said:
We're attracting incompetent people now, just dishonest ones.
Click to expand...
The people we have now are very competent. But yes, most have become dishonest.

An analogy. Term limits is similar to the border fence we're building along the border with Mexico. The goal of the fence is to keep illegal immigrants out... but it won't really thwart them. They're going to come anyway, just through a different way. Term limits are a wall of sorts against corruption in politics... but it won't really address the corruption problem. There will be ways to work around the "wall" and still get what they can for themselves.

In both cases, the answer is to remove the incentives to come here or become corrupt in the first place. In the case of illegal immigration that would mean changing citizenship rules and targeting employers with heavy penalties for hiring illegal immigrants. In the case of political corruption it means redefining what "speech" is and removing and/or severely limiting what non-human entities and foreign non-citizens can do that affect our political process.

In both cases the border fence and term limits are mere band-aids. All show, no substance. They do absolutely nothing to address the underlying cause. The meaningful solutions require us to keep ourselves accountable, and well, we just can't have that, I suppose. We'd rather stick a band-aid on it and hope for the best.


Cephus said:
When do you think we're going to see any good politicians?
Click to expand...
When we start looking beyond ourselves and vote accordingly.
 
radcen said:
The people we have now are very competent. But yes, most have become dishonest.
Click to expand...

If they were competent, then why are we in the financial mess we're in? We've got people who are so fanatical about their political position that they're willing to hang the whole nation out to dry to maintain philosophical purity. That's not competent people.

An analogy. Term limits is similar to the border fence we're building along the border with Mexico. The goal of the fence is to keep illegal immigrants out... but it won't really thwart them. They're going to come anyway, just through a different way. Term limits are a wall of sorts against corruption in politics... but it won't really address the corruption problem. There will be ways to work around the "wall" and still get what they can for themselves.
Click to expand...

But the fence is only one part of the puzzle, just like term limits is only one part of the puzzle. It's not a single fix-all and has never been put forward as such. We also need to get changing the system out of the hands of the people who benefit from the system. That's another part of the puzzle.

In both cases, the answer is to remove the incentives to come here or become corrupt in the first place. In the case of illegal immigration that would mean changing citizenship rules and targeting employers with heavy penalties for hiring illegal immigrants. In the case of political corruption it means redefining what "speech" is and removing and/or severely limiting what non-human entities and foreign non-citizens can do that affect our political process.
Click to expand...

Exactly, which is why we limit wages, limit benefiting from time in office, keep people from being lifelong politicians, etc. Make political office something that only those who really want to serve the public good would want.
 
Kandahar said:
As I see it, the primary reasons that longer terms of service are problems are: 1) A given politician will be running for reelection more often than not, and therefore will need to raise campaign funds from lobbyists. 2) The longer a politician serves in Congress, the more insulated they become from their constituents and the more they adopt the culture of Congress itself...which is rarely a good thing.

Term limits would address both of those problems. They'd reduce the likelihood of a given politician needing to raise money for his reelection war chest, and they'd increase the turnover rate so that legislators are more in tune with their constituents and have less time to develop a Congress culture of their own.
Click to expand...
1) They're still "needing" that lobbying money to get re-elected, even for their last term, and to get elected the first time to begin with. Also, it would do nothing to prevent other pandering and 'perks' that could influence a politician after they leave office. There's more for sale than only re-elections. Much more. The underlying influence of money is still there regardless.

2) I don't disagree with this.

The only real potential positive for term limits that I see... and it is only a potential, not a given... is that during a person's last term they might be willing to vote for the overall good instead of lobbying interests. And that presumes that the politician has no promises of employment or other influences after their term in office waiting for them.
 
radcen said:
1) They're still "needing" that lobbying money to get re-elected, even for their last term, and to get elected the first time to begin with. Also, it would do nothing to prevent other pandering and 'perks' that could influence a politician after they leave office. There's more for sale than only re-elections. Much more. The underlying influence of money is still there regardless.
Click to expand...

Which is why you make it illegal for anyone or any group to donate a penny to any individual candidate for any reason. No money = no influence.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom