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Date:         Tue, 10 Nov 1992 01:08:48 -0400
From:         MIKE <8612775@SSCVAX.CIS.MCMASTER.CA>
Subject:      Term limits (forwd from Compuserve)
Comments: To: politics@ohstvma.bitnet

                  THE CASE FOR CONGRESSIONAL TERM LIMITS



Government spending, waste and the massive deficits are continuing to grow
out of control and the Federal government is totally failing to effectively
solve most of our economic, social, health, education, crime and
environmental problems.

Despite tax increases, on an average of once a year over the past decade to
reduce the deficits, the deficits keep getting larger.  We are rapidly
approaching the point where the massive Federal deficits are going to suck
us into the black hole of an economic catastrophe as bad or worse than the
great depression of 1929.  We are stretching our economic system to it's
limits and will soon reach a brutal day of reckoning if we don't change
course soon.

More and more of our children are being raised without the love,
discipline, family and social values provided by two parent families.
Whole generations of children are being raised with a poor education,
discipline and social values.  Some of our cities are becoming almost
ungovernable.

We are showing all of the symptoms of a nation in decline.

The Presidential elections are in the news and everyone is discussing which
candidate is best qualified to solve our national problems.  With all the
media attention given to this event it is easy to forget that it is really
Congress that is at the heart of our problems.  Congress controls what laws
will be passed, taxes, and how much will be spent and on what.

We cannot expect to get our country back on the right track and start
solving our serious problems in a rational manner until we restructure our
greedy and pandering Congress.  Actions that would benefit the country are
ignored in favor of actions that perpetuate members in office and enhance
their wealth and comfort.

Until we exorcise this pervasive cancer from our body politic we are not
going to solve the resulting problems.

We must find a way to eliminate the corrupting effect of all the special
interest money being thrown at congressmen and reduce the incentive for
Congressmen to conduct themselves for the prime purpose of being reelected
instead of being statesmen and doing what is right and good for the
country.

Our Congressmen have perks worth over $100,000 per year, $129,000 annual
salaries, multi million dollar retirement plans plus the heady prestige and
power of the office and are up for election every two years.  Is it any
wonder that they conduct themselves in such an unstatesmen like manner and
subvert their every decision to the objective of reelection.

If we are ever going to correct the gross misgoverning of this country we
must remove these huge pressures for reelection.  The only way I know to
accomplish this is by term limits and an overhaul of our campaign financing
laws.

We should limit Senators to two six year terms and Congressmen to two four
year terms.  Why should our legislatures expect life time appointments.  We
limit the President and most of our State Governors to two terms because we
have found that they become too powerful and corrupt if they are in power
too long.  In addition new blood brings in a fresh commitment and new
ideas.  Because they have no emotional attachment to existing programs they
are more apt to restructure or abandon programs that are not working as
intended.

A limit of two four year terms for Congressmen, with terms staggered so
that one fourth are replaced every two years, offers some interesting
benefits.

    a.) The three fourths remaining provide experience and continuity to
        the system.

    b.) Half the members would be ineligible to run again.  These members
        could devote their full time and talents to solving problems and
        voting their conscience instead of catering to special interests
        for votes to be reelected.  They would prevent the other half from
        passing special interest legislation purely to inhance their
        reelection.

    c.) The half that would be up for reelection would make certain the
        voters needs were not ignored and would provide a healthy balance.

I suggest four year terms as two years would leave us with one of the major
problems with Congress at present.  When they are up for election in two
years they must start preparing for reelection shortly after taking office
instead of concentrating on solving the nations problems.  These short
terms also encourage quick fixes that frequently lead to long term
problems.  Let's face it, when you have to show results in less then two
years you do not have the luxury of worrying about long term results.

Now the present Congressmen and the special interests that benefit from
their congressional pawns are going to contend that this would mean the
loss of too much experience and talent.  If their experience and talent is
so valuable why have they been unable to solve or even improve the long
term problems we have such as poverty, homelessness, drugs, the S & L
scandal, civil rights, education, family disintegration, a declining
standard of living, international competitiveness, the environment, massive
deficits and economic decline, health care cost and availability etc.
About the only thing that all of this experience has done is perfect their
skills at increasing their pay and benefits, our taxes, and finding ways to
perpetuate their power.  We've had about as much of this kind of talent of
greed and mismanagement as we can stand.

Staggered terms will provide continuity and a pool of experienced hands.
We have plenty of ongoing talent and expertise in our permanent government
employees, our Universities and the numerous non profit organizations like
The Cato Institute, Brookings Institute, Heritage Foundation, The Rand
Corp., The Hoover Foundation etc. whom they can consult with for technical
information and advice.

It is contended that we need experienced congressmen and their staff to
help constituents deal with the complex maze of agencies and programs.  It
is Congress which has created this complex maze to make their constituents
more dependant on them.  Does this reasoning mean we should elect them to
permanent office so they can further subvert the system?  This problem can
be dealt with by using permanent civil service employees for assistance.
It would also not be particularly difficult to build an agency and program
data base that could be computer searched to obtain this information.  This
would be both more efficient and accurate.  In any event this problem must
be dealt with as Congressmen do eventually die or retire.

It is argued that term limitations are not needed as voters already have
the ability to vote them out of office.  This is true in theory only.  In
practice the system has been so subverted over the years in favor of the
incumbents that 97% are reelected even though congress is corrupt, can"t
balance the budget, is doing a terrible job and should suffer heavy
turnover.

For example.  We have been running huge deficits for over ten years and
careful studies have shown that much of this is caused by congressional
pork and waste.  The House Appropriations Committee is supposed to exercise
control over spending.  The chairmen of this committee is Jamie Whitten.
He is 82 years old and has been in Congress for over 50 years.  He recently
had a stroke but instead of retiring he temporarily turned his duties over
to William Natcher who is also 82 and a long term career Congressmen.  Now
these fellows have just been doing a terrible job and should have been
kicked out or retired years ago but are not going to let go until they stop
breathing.

The system is rigged in the following ways:

  1. The natural public exposure obtained by the incumbents powerful
     position gives them an automatic and free public recognition advantage
     over potential challengers.  A sitting Congressman has no difficulty
     getting in the paper or on TV by merely issuing a news release or
     calling a news conference.

     They have provided themselves with free Recording Studios to allow
     members to produce their own video and audio releases for local TV and
     radio stations to enhance their visibility and electabilty.

     In addition, they spend over $100,000,000 per year on free mail to
     their district which has as it's main purpose their reelection.

  2. Ninety percent of campaign contributions come from PAC's and 85% of
     the PAC contributions go to incumbents to curry the Congressmen's
     favor. This makes it possible for incumbents to build up huge campaign
     War Chests.  These War Chests permit incumbents to overwhelm
     challengers with TV and other media advertising.  At times these War
     Chests are so intimidating that the incumbent is unopposed.

     A study by Common Cause has shown that of 406 incumbents who ran in
     1990, 79 (19%) were totally unopposed and 158 (39%) more incumbents
     were financially unopposed (The challenger raised less than $25,000).
     One hundred and thirty two (33%) more ran against challengers who had
     less than half of the incumbents financial resources.  In other words
     over 90% of the incumbents had no or very weak challengers.  Very few
     good people are going to run against these odds. Is this the kind of
     democracy our forefathers intended?

  3. Congressmen pander to large voting blocks by passing legislation of
     special benefit to them.  The ones that benefit remember the benefit
     and deliver their vote to maintain the special benefit.  They seldom
     recognize or can see how special benefits for others are hurting them
     as the price is paid indirectly and diffused.  It's the old problem of
     concentrated benefits and diffused payment.

  4. These large War Chests and inherent power advantages of the incumbent
     discourage potentially good challengers from running leaving the
     voters with no choice or a choice between the incumbent and a poor
     challenger.  "In the land of the blind the one eyed man is King!"

It has been contended by some that term limits reduce the voters choice and
are not democratic.  Term limits and other structural changes to level the
playing field will provide more and better candidates and as a result
increase the voters choice and make it a more democratic system.  Who
really believes the present system is "democratic"?

The overwhelming advantages to the incumbent, built into the present system
by congress, should be eliminated to return us to a true democracy.

    1. Grant the franking privilege to all ballot qualified challengers in
       direct proportion to the quantity of mail the incumbent sends out in
       the six months preceding the election.

    2. Require that if a PAC, Company or individual contributes more than
       $100 to a candidate they must contribute an equal amount to all
       other candidates on the ballot for the same position.

    3. Require all public TV stations to provide a minimum of two hours per
       week in prime time during the four weeks preceding the national
       election for national candidates to express their views.  This time
       to be divided approximately equally between all candidates on the
       ballot for the same position.

    4. Induce local Newspapers to provide one page per week for the four
       weeks preceding the election for candidates to express their views.
       This space to be divided equally between the candidates on the
       ballot for the same position.  This inducement could be in the form
       of a tax incentive or direct payment for the space.

    5. Candidates should not be permitted to spend more than $20,000 of
       their personal funds on their election campaigns.

The above would remove the big "influence money" from the election arena
and secondly it would put all candidates on a more even level.  Their
chances of winning office would be more dependent on their qualifications
than high powered advertising campaigns funded by special interest money.

Along with term limits we need a strong ethics law.  This will permit our
representatives to be statesmen and devote most of their time to solving
our nations problems instead of pandering to every special interest that
dangles campaign contributions, free gifts and/or blocks of votes in front
of their noses.

A new ethics law should prohibit Congressman and Senators and their
families from receiving money, gifts, free transportation, vacations or
anything else of significant monetary value, either directly or indirectly,
from any organizations or individuals that could be helped by legislation.

If the Democratic system, envisioned by our founders, is to be preserved
for our children, we must undertake these reforms.

Now, how can we accomplish these changes?  Obviously Congress is not going
to fire itself or reduce it's own power and privilege.  We can only
accomplish this through our state representatives.  We must put sufficient
pressure on our state representatives to pass a constitutional amendment
mandating these reforms and forcing them on a reluctant and intrenched
Congress.


                                  W. J Mechlenburg