Term Limits Now! Because Really, How Much Worse Could It Get?

Think about just a fraction of the agony, pain, and frustration the American political class has inflicted on us over the past few decades:

1. A sky high national debt of about $17 TRILLION, a person debt burden of about $54,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country.
2. Annual budget deficits that have been over one TRILLION dollars a year for the past four years.
3. Economic policies that have left over 20 million Americans either unemployed or under employed.
4. Recent college graduates that cannot find a job in their field of interest, relegated to taking jobs that did not require them to rack up record amounts of student debt.
5. A government that uses the IRS, the NSA, and other agencies to harass and hinder political opponents and to spy on every form of electronic communications of every American.
6. Decades worth of government spending worth TRILLIONS of dollars without resolving any of the major issues of our times including our failing public schools, our lack of a national energy policy, leaky borders, skyrocketing health care costs, etc.
7. Politicians that are more focused on their perpetual reelection and personal enrichment than the needs and desires of American citizens.
8. Political processes that have been corrupted to almost always guarantee the incumbent’s reelection.
9. Cronyism and obscene amounts of political money that flow into our political class from PACs, Super PACs, unions, and businesses, money that drowns out the voice of individual Americans.
10. Foreign policies that are stupid, expensive, ineffective, and have turned us into the terrorist target of the world’s radicals and nut jobs.
11. Government processes and programs that are inefficient, ineffective, corrupt, and subject to massive criminal fraud, wasting hundreds of billions of dollars a year in taxpayer wealth.

I could go on but it is too depressing. At the same time that all of these messes were occurring and all of these issues went unattended, consider the tenure of some of Washington’s current political figures:

• John Dingell - 57 years
• John Conyers - 48 years
• Charles Rangel - 42 years
• Bill Young - 42 years
• Joe Biden - 42 years
• Thad Cochran - 40 years
• Don Young - 40 years
• Patrick Leahy - 38 years
• Max Baucus - 38 years
• Chuck Grassley - 38 years
• Tom Harkin - 38 years
• George Miller - 38 years
• Henry Waxman - 38 years
• Ed Markey - 36 years
• Orrin Hatch - 36 years
• Barbara Mikulski - 36 years
• Nick Rahall - 36 years

Consider some factoids from a January, 2013 Congressional Research Services analysis:

1. The current average service time in Congress of sitting politicians is near an all time high.
2. Congressional tenure as been steadily increasing over time.
3. The percentage of incumbent politicians not seeking reelection has been steadily decreasing over time.
4. The percentage of incumbent politicians winning reelection has been steadily increasing over time.

A number of conclusions are obvious. First, people running for Federal office are staying longer and longer in office to enjoy the perks and benefits of being in those positions, perks and benefits that they determine. Second, they are holding onto to their seats longer despite numerous elections, leveraging their incumbency status and the ability to write and adjust our political processes.

Out of the longest serving Washington politicians in the entire history of our country, a remarkable 17% of them (the list above) are currently still in office. These people have been present and a contributor to the numerous disasters we listed above.

- Present and contributing to a $17 TRILLION deficit.

- Present and contributing to unresolved crises in education, health care, and energy.

- Present and contributing to an inefficient, ineffective, corrupt, and criminally infested government programs.

I maintain that these politicians in the list, and the rest of their long serving peers, are truly part of our problem because they sure are not part of the solution. If they were part of the solution, our taxes would be lower, our degree of liberty and freedom would be higher, and major issues of our times would have been resolved long ago.

So why do they keep getting reelected if they truly are part of the problem? Because they control the political processes, the fund raising rules, the gerrymandering of Congressional districts, etc. that ensure their reelection and the continual flow of incompetence.

That is why we need to take this matter into our own hands and impose term limits on these people if we are to have any chance of fixing what ails our political processes and the nation. That is why we ask three things of you today:

1) Read the following paragraphs from our new, grass roots term limits initiative, paragraphs that come from the first page of our “Term Limits Now!”:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

2) Answer the question posed at the end of that first page relative to your grandchildren and children

3) Join our effort to fix what long serving polticiains have broken.

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Term Limits Now!

"It can't get any worse, vote Tiririca"

Political campaign slogan used by the famous Brazilian clown, Tiririca, a slogan that helped him garner over 1.3 million votes and which propelled him into a seat in the Brazilian Congress.

The mood in America is not good. Economic conditions are bad and trending worse, our national debt is skyrocketing, the country's citizens have never been more divided against each than they are today, our world standing and prestige continue to deteriorate, and the political class in America has not solved a single major issue in the past several decades. Our schools continue to under educate our kids, we have no strategic and effective national energy policy, health care costs continue to escalate, our borders leak, and we have already lost the war on drugs.

Many of these chronic issues have been with us for decades, proving that the Washington political class has been incapable or unwilling to address and resolve these national problems. And most recently, our politicians have again illustrated their impotency and their hand in the destruction of freedom and liberty in the following, unfolding scandals:

1. It has become clear that the Obama administration and the Washington political class used and abused the powers and reach of the IRS to harass and hinder citizens and organizations who held contrary political views to this administration, violating their First Amendment freedom of speech rights.

2. It has become clear that the Obama administration and the Washington political class used and abused the powers and reach of the IRS to harass and hinder religious groups who held contrary political views to this administration, violating their First Amendment freedom of speech rights.

3. It has become clear that the Obama administration and the Washington political class have forced religious entities to break their religious tenets and beliefs to remain lawful under politically motivated legislation such as Obama Care, violating their freedom of religion rights.

4. It has become clear that the Obama administration and the Washington political class are conducting massive data collection, storage, and analysis activities on the just about every form of electronics communications of just about every American, using secret warrants issued by secret judges in secret courts without any due process, violating the Fourth Amendment rights of every American.

5. It has become clear that the Obama administration and the Washington political class have conducted illegal secret searches and confiscations of journalists telephone records and possibly other information, violating the First Amendment's freedom of the press and freedom of speech rights.

These blatant and massive violations of citizens' rights and the Constitution, our economic distress, and divisive politics benefit only one group of Americans in this bitter environment. The career Washington politicians continue to get themselves re-elected over and over again and continue to reward themselves handsomely, not for resolving issues and protecting our freedoms and the Constitution, but for the simple act of being in office. Many of them have been in office for the same decades in which the Federal government has resolved no major issues, lending themselves to the old saying, "if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem."

Their constant need to get re-elected has perverted our democratic institutions and processes so much that political special interests and their overwhelming money power have drowned out the voices of ordinary citizens. Corporate bailouts, corporate welfare, union concessions, wasteful and useless budget earmarks to campaign donators, etc. subvert our democracy and sub-optimize the decisions made in Washington. And this perversion is most evident when incumbent politicians leverage their position and power in office to get themselves reelected.

To remove this perversion and greatly reduce the amount of special interest money that flows into our political processes, the need for term limits has never been more important. Our founding fathers never imagined or wanted a political class to develop in America. They viewed getting elected to political office as a calling and a short term service to the country, not a long term career. Unfortunately, this vision is lost on today's American political class.

Many Americans believe that we need to go back to the idea of short term citizen politicians vs. long term career politicians. We need to greatly reduce the amount of special interest money that almost always ensures that low performing politicians get re-elected, and we need a fresh set of people and ideas in Washington to deal with the crushing, unresolved issues of our times. If you agree, please join us in enacting a Constitutional amendment drive to limit service in the White House, Senate, and the House of Representatives to one term and one term only.

Our plan is gather 100,000 signers of this petition as soon as possible. Once we attain 100,000 signers, we will then go into a "crowd sourcing" mode to gather enough volunteer financial resources to take this term limits initiative to all fifty states, according to the Amendment process laid out in the Constitution. We will go the crowd sourcing and volunteer route in order to not be influenced or overcome by corporate, union, think tank, or political interests' money and resources. These entities want the status quo maintained, they will have no influence in our drive for "one and done."

Please fill out the petition form and send it to us by hitting the "submit" button. Please consider helping us further by indicating that you would be able to volunteer your time and talents for this effort. Also, we would appreciate if you would tell similarly minded friends and family to sign our petition and to "Like" us on Facebook where we are looking to get one million "Likes" to further prove our concept to crowd funding sources.

We will keep your information private and on file and will keep you informed of the process and progress we make going forward to make term limit's a reality. To contact us directly, our email address is:

UnitedStatesofPurple@gmail.com

One last thought: imagine yourself ten years down the road from today. Your kids or grandkids ask you why the economy is so sour, why it is so difficult to get a good job, why freedom in America seems like an empty promise, and why their tax burden is so onerous in order to support the ever growing national debt. Do nothing today and you will be able to tell them that when you had a chance to turn out the career politicians that were responsible for their economic distress and replace them with actual problem solvers, you passed on the opportunity.

Get involved with this effort to implement term limits and you may never have to answer their questions.

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If you never want to answer these future, hypothetical, and depressing questions from your kids ands grandkids, consider joining us at:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

Because, really, how much worse could it get it if we swapped out every politician in Washington?

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.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w 
 

Chicken Little And The Washington Political Class, Part 2: Biden and The Hyatt Regency

Last week we did a popular post that showed how inane and stupid the Chicken Little talk was from Obama and other Washington politicians relative to the financial sequester:

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/03/chicken-little-and-washington-political.html

The sequester required a small 2% across the board cut in spending by the Federal government because the President and those in Congress were too incompetent to come up with a rational plan to trim government spending over a 17 month period.

The President was given the task of deciding how to cut the spending by a measly 2% and he chose the most vindictive and cruel ways to do it, ensuring that the citizens of this country would suffer the most despite the fact that the government wastes hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

He chose to shut down school and family tours of the White House despite the low cost of continuing them and the tradition of continuing them. He chose to release over 2,000 illegal alien criminals, of which over 400 had been convicted of a violent crime. He threatened to shut down the long tradition of the White House Easter Egg Hunt despite its low cost. He threatened other measures to maximize the negative impact on America.

We pointed to a number of ways that the government could have cut far more expense with much less pain to Americans. However, politically, that was not the best route for the President, with vindictiveness and pain being his path of choice. A week or so after that post, we have uncovered a whole new set of wasteful spending projects and programs that Obama should have shut down long ago but did not.

1) Last week CBS News, a main component of the mainstream media, actually did a piece on government waste that should have been cut before it even happened. The IRS spent $60,000 to have a mediocre Star Trek themed video produced for internal use. The video can be viewed at the following link:

http://patriotupdate.com/2013/03/taxpayers-fund-irs-star-trek-parody/

You cannot claim that you are running an efficient government operation when tens of thousands of dollars are spent on unneeded videos, especially poorly made ones like this piece of trash that will have no redeeming value and impact virtually any American’s life. Makes you wonder how many more such government videos are produced that are just as unnecessary.

2) U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont recently wrote a letter to a Vermont citizen regarding the status of the next generation U.S. military fighter jet, the F-35 which has been under development since 2001: “The F-35 program has been poorly managed and is a textbook example of how not to buy military equipment. The causes of the F-35 program’s present difficulties are too numerous to detail in my response to your letter; however, I believe the F-35 program is approaching a point where the military services and a majority of Congress will recognize that the jet is just too costly to proceed with purchases at today’s planned levels.”

While I applaud the Senator’s candor, I think he is being a little too kind. According to a recent report from the Secretary of Defense by the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, J. Michael Gilmore, dated February 15, 2013, the fighter’s ultimate cost is likely to be about $1.5 TRILLION which will put it at 100% over budget. The plane currently cannot fly in bad weather, on instruments, or at night due to failures in many of it systems. These failures exist despite the fact that the American taxpayer has already spent $400 billion on this disaster.

$400 billion already spent, No viable jet fighter in sight. Over $1 TRILLION still to be spent. You could give a lot of White House tours for $1.5 TRILLION.

3) Apparently the Federal Department of Education has a great amount of say in the education processes on native Americans. As a result of sequester, this administration and its strategy to make these measly 2% cuts hurt as much as possible, forced expense cuts on Native American schools in Minnesota, according to the outraged Congresswoman from that district, Congresswoman Betty McCollum:

• Native American schools in Minnesota are freezing salaries, leaving job openings unfilled, enlarging classroom sizes, and making other cost savings moves to satisfy demands being enforced by the Department of Education.
• The White Earth Reservation tribal school may cut the school year down to save money.
• The Red Lake School District has cut security staff.

However, at the same time these kids’ education capabilities are being cut, the Department of Education is creating a totally new position that pays over $127,000 a year. The job is going to a former aid of Congressman Charles Rangel, David Johns, and is titled, “Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African-Americans.”

I would assume that this is not a solitary position and that this new executive director will also have a staff of people burning through taxpayer money. You decide: do not create and staff this position and new entity, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in
order to minimize the cuts to Native American education processes or expand the Federal government bureaucracy and screw the kids’ education. Not being the vindictive type like our President, I would have kept the resources with the kids and not the bureaucrats.

4) And for the worst hypocrisy of all, Vice President Joe Biden. He recently flew to Europe where he spent one day London and one day in Paris. Total cost to the American taxpayer: about $1 million. Yes, one million for a two night stand in Europe. Copies of the receipts for these two nights can be seen at the following link:

http://www.mrconservative.com/2013/03/6986-biden-spends-585000-in-one-night-paris-stay-on-your-dollar/

Details of the London expenditures include the following:

• Biden’s entourage needed 136 rooms at the Hyatt Regency, certainly not your low end hotel accommodations by any stretch of the imagination.
• These 136 rooms resulting in a total of 893 room nights for the stay for members of his security force and other entourage members, all for a one night visit.
• The total cost just for the hotel stay came out to $459,338.65, or a little more than $500 per room for these public servants

Comparable expenses were run up at the Paris stopover.

Look, I understand the need for our politicians to visit overseas locations and meet foreign leaders. I understand they need to be kept safe, it is a dangerous world out there. But come on, 136 rooms, Hyatt Regency, $500 a night? Why did these people not stay at our embassies, they are secure. The London embassy certainly has the room:

Or why couldn’t Biden have stayed at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in London, another secure location which also certainly has the space while the rest of his entourage stayed at the equivalent of the Red Roof:

The reason he did not is that Biden is just like every other politician in the White House and in Congress: they are so out of touch with reality and the need to intelligently and unselfishly cut expenses that they would rather have the people of America suffer before they see their plush, extravagant, and selfish life styles affected.

Biden’s expenses could have been used to operate White House tours for a whole year. Instead, the tours are out for Americans, the Hyatt Regency is still a go for politicians.

This Chicken Little behavior of our political class through this whole sequester mess, a process they agreed to 17 months ago, proves once and for all that we need term limits more than ever in this country, as proposed by Step 39 in “Love My Country, Loathe My Government.” When the ruling political class is more focused on making life painful for the citizens in this country, it is definitely time to replace those that find being vindictive more preferable to being compassionate and caring.

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.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w