Tuesday, March 28, 2006

If It Is Good For Presidents Why not Senators and Congressmen/Women

For very good reason,too numerous to enumerate now,we have term limits for our President. Why not for our members of both houses of congress?
With all the rhetoric about political influence and corruption surrounding the activities of Jack Abramhoff. There are many suggestions being floated as to how lobbyist reform is a must,and the definitive answer to this obvious adverse effect on our representative form of government. No one has come forward to propose what I think is this best way to stop this daily corruption of some of our elected representatives. Term limits for all members of congress. One term of six years or two of four years should help to reduce the need for members of congress to spend half of their time in office looking for money to get re-elected. The original framers of our constitution did not intend the elected members of congress to be career politicians. Citizen representatives of the people who elected them was the original intent. But now we have career politicians who learn to savor the power, prestige and special life of the inhabitant of a seat in the house or senate. Where the majority of the money comes from in incumbent re-election campaigns is not from "joe six-pack" who went to the poles and pulled the lever that put he or she in office. It is from the major lobbyist groups with special interests in mind that contribute or deny contribution to those who don't "play ball". Lobby groups like AARP, AIPAC, AFL-CIO, and NRA pour hundreds of millions of dollars into their support or opposition to re-election campaigns. This is a well documented fact. This will never change under our current system of government. Special interest groups can't be effectively legislated away by those who stand to gain the most by their continued existence. A national referendum which mandates term limits for all elected officials is the only way to get back to a elected congress that truly represents those that elected them. With no need to worry about being re-elected, maybe we would get back to real representative government. Not one that reflects special interest!

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