Today's theme comes from a long time and very good friend of mine from my corporate employment days. I have always enjoyed and respected her smarts, drive, and passion so when she dropped an email on me today I knew it would be interesting. The email laid out some interesting changes she would like to see made to the broken political and governmental processes we currently have in this country. Her concepts are entirely consistent with the principles of freedom and liberty laid out in our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government."
Before getting into the detail's of her concepts, consider what can be done when ordinary people get passionate and involved in making a better world. According to her email, the 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only three months eight days to be ratified. This was before email, personal computers, smart phones, Twitter, Facebook, and other modern ways to communicate. Furthermore, according to the email, of the twenty seven amendments to the Constitution, seven took one year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.
So, let's call this movement the "Congressional Reform Act of 2011," an act that would include the following components:
1. Term Limits. This is totally consistent with Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" - "Restrict all United States Senators to One Six year term and all members of the House Of Representatives to one four year term or two two year terms."
2. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office. This concept is consistent with Step 9 - "Make a traditional government pension plan unavailable to all future Federal government employees including elected representatives," Step 41 - "Prohibit any Senator, Congressman, or President, whose net worth is over $3 million, from drawing a paycheck during the their term of office," and Step 42, which would require wealthy ex-Presidents to start paying for the Secret Service protection if their income and/or wealth exceeds certain thresholds.
3. Congress (past, present and future) participates in Social Security. See Step 9 above. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.
4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do. Also consistent with Step 9 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." Most Americans no longer have any chance of receiving a traditional pension. Politicians, whose pensions are paid by the very people who no longer can get a pension, should not be entitled to something most Americans can not receive.
5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%. This step is very consistent but slightly different from Step 37 - "Base pay raises for Congressional members on an annual customer satisfaction rating and repeal the current practice of automatically increasing Congressional pay without a vote." This approach requires that the political class actually be successful in their job before getting rewarded, much like the plight of most working Americans.
6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people. No argument on this one
7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people. No argument here either.
8. All contracts with past and present Congressional members are void effective 1/1/11. In agreement but there might be some legal issues here, i.e. can you renege on past agreements? If you can, then great. If not, then at least start with future generations of politicians.
9. Allow only individual Americans to contribute to election campaigns. No corporate donations, no PAC donations, no union donations, no fancy sounding front group donations, just individual Americans exercising their freedom of expression by sending directly to a politician's campaign fund. Totally consistent with Steps 6 and 7 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government."
The American people did not make this contract with Congressional members. They made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.
To see a graphical representation of what our political class has done to us, I refer you back to the November 18, 2010 post in this blog, The Freedom Pyramid. This is one of the most viewed posts of all time on this blog and it accurately and graphically illustrates how the political class has taken the concept of freedom and liberty in this country, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers and made official and sacrosanct in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, and turned it upside down to the benefit of no one but themselves. The proposed Congressional Reform Act of 2011 and the fifty steps from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would help get us back to the original, intended Freedom Pyramid.
Before signing off, we would like your input on the first component above, term limits. It is any easy concept to grasp but when you start thinking about what this would actually look like, the permutations can make you crazy. Thus, we would like you to vote on one of the four options when it comes to term limits:
Option A - Senators get a maximum of twelve years via two six year terms and House members get a maximum of twelve years via six two year terms. Presidents get a maximum of eight years via two four year terms.
Option B - Senators get a maximum one six year term and House members get a maximum of six years via three two year terms. Presidents get a maximum of eight years via two four year terms.
Option C - Senators get a maximum of one five year term and House members get a maximum of three years via one three year term. The President gets a maximum of six years via one six year term.
Option D - term limits are not a good idea, no changes.
Although I do not want to affect results, I would like to point out the huge benefit of Option C. It is my belief that much of the perversions of the political process occurs when incumbents sell their souls for votes and campaign donations, subjugating the best interest of the country for the best interests of their political careers. If a politician has no chance at re-election, a lot of this problem goes away and they are free to make the right decisions for the country and are not burdened with the need to raise re-election funds. Just a thought.
To vote, please drop a short email with your choice of option A, B, C, or D as your preferred approach along with your home state and I will tabulate those results and publish them in a future post.
Send those emails to: info@loathemygovernment.com
The need to be subservient to the political class does not have to be. According to my friend, if each person reading this contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. I do not know if her math is right but her heart is right. Maybe it is time...
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment
Thursday, February 3, 2011
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