Why Ads for Prescription Drugs? Doesn't the Doctor prescribe them? Makes no sense to me.
Oh...that's a great topic for another thread...
Why Ads for Prescription Drugs? Doesn't the Doctor prescribe them? Makes no sense to me.
In what way would you decide who chairs committees?I disagree that term limits will accomplish the same thing. I just don't see campaign finance reform ending seniority clout. Voters do not want to uniformily cede the power is dervied from seniority clout. In Alaska both Ted Stevens (Senator) and Don Young (Representative) frequently mention the power that would be lost if they were not returned to office.
Basically, what you are saying is that people are greedy and/or unitelligent, and thus can't be trusted to act in the best interest of the country when electing their congressmen and senators.
It's ironic...those conservatives who tell us that we need the help of term limits because we essentially aren't smart enough to elect leaders that will make our political system work properly, are the same conservatives who rail against various Federal government programs because those programs take away our rights to make choices, or because those programs dictate to us what's best for us. So, are we intelligent enough to make choices, or aren't we??? Do we know what's best for us, or don't we???
Have any of these things actually been accomplished where congressional term limits have been in effect? In fact, in the case of term-limited incumbents, doesn't the candidate that the well-liked term-limited incumbent endorse usually win the party nomination, and go on to win the general election in most cases?
In our times, big money wins elections, because big money is required to run the publicity machine. Until you change that, 1) and 2) above will never happen, term limits or not. The only thing that term limits might accomplish is 3), and 3) could easily be accomplished by internal Congressional rule changes addressing seniority and limiting how long a congressman can sit on or chair the same committee.
It depends. Often times the ideas of the general public are not especially well informed, and responding to political pressure can produce bad legislation.Ummmmm, aren't legislators supposed to be representing the district they serve? After all they were elected to REPRESENT their district. I think to many of them aren't currently in touch with what the people of their district wants and thats the problem to me
Some districts have highly senior incumbents who wield enormous power, while others
have junior legislators with very little power. Thus, without term limits, similarly sized populations have significantly unequal levels of legislative power. Legislativepower per person remains unequally distributed.
And you can mention all you want that reforming the rules to chairing committees would resolve this power problem. However, it is a fact that length of tenure, not formal position, is the main source of legislative influence. *
Let me present a scenario....
Suppose you want to advance whatever your perception is of the public interest and do not care at all about procuring pork, or other material benefits for your district. Would you prefer a senior legislator who agrees with 80% of what you think is in the public interest and can further its enactment or a freshman legislator who shares your ideology but would have a limited impact on any legislation?
My point is that most voters prefer the senior legislator because they have the power to deliver far more than the freshman legislator. This seniority clout only widens when one considers many voters do care about the material benefits that accrue to their district and will vote to maintain as large of a share of possible by reelecting their senior legislators.
I agree with everyone that it doesn't really solve all or possibly any of the problems. In a perfect world, I would like to see a line item veto and a balanced budget amendment.
This concern can be largely addressed by increased transparency with regard to things like earmarks and an active pursuit of the issue by outside groups. This would have the further effect of actually doing something about spending.
Also, I again have to ask if you have a better method for deciding committee chairs than seniority.
Most agree that senior legislators have far more power than junior legislators ("senior clout"). What strikes most as surprising is that this is not because seniority leads to better committee assignments. Length of tenure, not formal position has been found to be the main source of legislative power. Therefore, the method used to select committee chairs does not appreciably reduce "seniority clout."
Source: Congressional Careers, Contours of Life In the U.S. House of Representatives, John R. Hibbing, pp. 162-165.
I haven't gone to the trouble to look up your source, so I'll ask you, Why do senior members of congress have more power? Here are a few of my guesses and responses:
1. They get better committee assignments.
How else do you propose to decide who does what?
2. They are experienced and know what the heck is going on.
Is this not a valid reason for them to have more power?
3. They know more people.
Again, this seems to be a valid reason to have more power.
4. They have more clout with their respective party.
Maybe an argument here. However, there will always be party bosses that have a great deal of control over things.
I think the value of institutional knowledge is rather underrated by most proponents of term limits. Having been a part of a group without much if any institutional memory, the ISU Governments of the Student Body, I can attest to this. Our senior members were often more insightful and productive due to their experience. They remembered things like how the Crew team's budget was tight because we had just bought them a $26,000 boat the year before, how some organizations made it a habit of poorly planning come budget time and then coming later in the year to ask for more funds, or why a certain bylaws said what they did. Basically, the only source of institutional memory for GSB was our office manager. While I was there I stumbled upon $3,000 we had in an account that nobody even knew about. It had been put into that account prior to the arrival of our office manager.
Government corruption is caused mainly by the long term retention of power ( most politicians being extremely human human beings and not saints). The long term retention of power in politics is mainly due to the monetary advantage incumbents have and gerrymandering. The question is how can we diminish the likelihood of long term retention of power in government?
We have found that campaign finance reform doesn't work because political cash is too fungible. Term limits seems to be the next best way to reduce corruption in government.
Another alternative might be to pass a law requiring all congressional districts to have 4 sides of equal length, the only exception being a side that lies on a state boundary.
Unfortunately, term limits would give lifetime bureaucrats even MORE power to influence policy. Some of the worst aspects of our government come to us courtesy of lifetime government employee(s).
Who do you think actually WRITES the laws, and administers the programs?