Is It Time for Term Limits Yet?

“Politicians are like diapers: they must be changed often and for the same reason.” – Paul Harvey

 Our country is almost 16 trillion dollars in debt, our deficit will be 1.3 trillion dollars this year, Social Security and Medicare are going broke, the Senate hasn’t passed a budget in more than three years even though they claim there is no inflation, our dollar is buying less, Congress has never been less popular and it seems like our country has never been more mismanaged, but we keep electing the same people into office. In spite of the very low approval ratings of Congress as a whole, too many Americans like their own Congressmen, but all too often it’s really because they bring home the bacon (pork). 

Our founding fathers didn’t envision a system where we’d have people serving their entire adult lives in elected office. It seems they thought of public service more like jury duty, able people stepping away from their farms, careers and businesses to serve the public for a limited amount of time, then going back to their farms, careers and businesses. It was meant to be a temporary duty, not a lifelong career.

Many people elected to public office aren’t wealthy. While they’re serving they earn modest salaries, but somehow almost all of our Congressmen and Senators retire as very wealthy people. Even after a term or two, most are set for life; many are set for generations. How can that be?

Robert Byrd, former KKK "Exalted Cyclops" and founding member of one of the KKK chapters, and Carl Hayden each spent about fifty-seven years in Congress (that’s one-hundred-and-fourteen years between them!). Right now we have fourteen members of the House and Senate that have been serving anywhere between thirty-seven and fifty-six years each. Along the way, they each add more links to the chain of favors they owe to special interest groups, big business, fellow legislators and lobbyists. Like Jacob Marley, they each forge their chain inch by inch, yard by yard.  The longer they’re in, the longer their chain. 

In polls, anywhere between 71% and 96% of Americans say they’re in favor of term limits.  In spite of overwhelming public support, Congress will never vote in favor of them (I suppose it would take a Constitutional amendment). Can you picture a majority of Republican or Democratic politicians voting to limit their own power? Can you picture a majority of Republican or Democratic politicians voting to limit themselves to two terms instead of a potential, and very lucrative, fifty-seven year career? 

 I think term limits could be a common goal for the people of both parties, also for the people of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements. We need to “drain the swamp” every so often because Washington, D.C. is a swamp. Term limits would provide an automatic drain.

Let’s vote for people based on merit instead of seniority and favors; let’s get rid of the dead, decayed, rotted wood that keeps piling up.