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Congress will never do that. They NEVER act against their self interests. That's why they control their own pay and raises.
I have to agree with Thomas Sowell on this one. Let the folks serve
one term and go home. We don't need career politicians.
Political corruption
By Thomas Sowell
Jan 24, 2006
The Jack Abramoff scandal has put political corruption front and center in Washington but this particular scandal, or even this particular kind of scandal, barely scratches the surface of corruption in government.
It is not that all members of Congress, or even most members of Congress, are taking outright bribes. Government is corrupted whenever it is diverted from its avowed purpose and directed toward some other goal, especially goals that conflict with its purpose.
This more general kind of corruption is much bigger than a few bribes and has far weightier consequences. Staggering as it is to think of the trillions of dollars in runaway spending by the federal government, that is just part of the story.
There are still more trillions of dollars being promised in Social Security pensions and Medicare payments, for which there is not enough money in the till. It is like writing checks without enough money in the bank to redeem them.
Present members of Congress win votes by promising such goodies. That leaves it up to future members of Congress to figure out how to welsh on those promises, which could not be met without jacking up tax rates to unprecedented levels.
Even that probably wouldn't provide enough money, since confiscatory tax rates confiscate the incentives needed to keep the economy going. An alternative political ploy would be to pay people the amount of money that was promised but in dollars so inflated that they won't buy anything close to what dollars bought when they were paid into the Social Security system.
Getting millions of people to rely on pensions that are not going to be there is corrupting government on a scale that makes bribing a few Congressmen look like minor league stuff.
Misuse of the powers of government is widespread at every level of government.
Confiscating homes for which people have worked and sacrificed for a lifetime, in order to turn the property over to someone else who is expected to pay more taxes, is a corruption of the power of eminent domain, which was put there to enable government to do things like build a dam or highway to benefit everyone.
In Burbank, California, the local politicians forced Home Depot to build a little shelter in which illegal aliens can wait to be picked up for work as day laborers -- for other people. The power to grant or withhold building permits was another power meant to be exercised for the public good, not to impose arbitrary extortions. But that kind of corruption is common in many communities.
What can be done about such corruption?
Some people think we need higher standards of behavior among public officials and/or stricter scrutiny by voters. Both would of course be wonderful, if they happened. But what are we to do in the meantime -- say, the next few centuries or the next millennium?
Anyone familiar with ancient history knows that people have been the way they are for thousands of years. Do not look for a change in human nature in 2006.
What we can change are the incentives and constraints.
At the heart of much government corruption is one simple thing: Re-election. It takes big bucks to run a political campaign and all that most politicians have to sell is the power of government that they control. That is what they do sell in various ways to various special interests.
Term limits try to deal with the problem of re-election but the fatal weakness of term limits is the "s" at the end of the word "limits." So long as there are multiple terms, the first term is going to be spent trying to get re-elected to a second term -- instead of devoting that time to serving the public interest.
What really needs to be done is to put a limit of one term in one office and a waiting period of several years before being elected or appointed to another office in government. In other words, make political careers impossible.
Can people who are not career politicians run the government? People who were not career politicians created the government and the Cons ution of the United States of America.
It was one of the most incredible achievements in history. Who among our career politicians today would be capable of such a feat?
Thomas Sowell is the prolific author of books such as Black Rednecks and White Liberals and Applied Economics.
Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com
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Find this story at: http://www.townhall.com/opinion/colu...24/183503.html
Congress will never do that. They NEVER act against their self interests. That's why they control their own pay and raises.
You need to do two things to make them less bribable.
1. Raise pay commensurate with the responsibility. These people are in charge of the whole country. CEOs of big businesses might make 100 times more than a senator. Let's not be penny-wise, dollar-foolish.
2. Public financing of elections. To avoid freedom of speech issues, a candidate can choose public financing or not, but other candidates get their funding increased if some other candidate overspends. Again, let's not be penny-wise, dollar-foolish.
And I would add a third fix to make them more responsible to the people.
3. Eliminate gerrymandering. Voting for the House is useless for 90% of us because of it.
Spurster, Mr. Sowell agrees with you on one point. Pay.
Political corruption: Part II
By Thomas Sowell
Jan 25, 2006
The over-riding quest for re-election is at the heart of the corruption of public officials who betray the public trust in order to get the money needed to pay for their political campaigns. It is hard to see how that corruption can be ended, except by ending re-elections with a limit of one term and a ban on running for another office for several years.
That way, the one term can be spent taking care of the duties of the office instead of taking care of promoting a political career in that office or other offices.
There are, of course, other sources of corruption. Members of Congress whose work puts them in the rarefied company of movers and shakers in the private sector, who make ten or a hundred times what Congressmen are paid, may find it tempting to accept perks like free flights on corporate jets or weekends at expensive watering holes. Some may hope for lucrative jobs after leaving politics.
Maybe that won't influence Congressional votes. But maybe it will.
The stakes are too high for us to be penny-wise and pound-foolish by putting trillions of dollars of the taxpayers' money in the hands of elected officials who are paid less than the beginning salary of a top student from a top law school.
If we paid every member of Congress $10 million a year, that would not increase the federal budget by one percent.
Chances are that it would reduce the federal budget considerably, when members of the Senate or the House of Representatives no longer needed campaign contributions or the personal favors of special interest groups and their lobbyists.
One term in the Senate would bring in $60 million, which most people could live on for life, without being beholden to anybody and without having to seek a job afterwards for special interests, much less having to sell their soul to continue a political career.
Money is not the only thing that corrupts. Power also corrupts and some people go into politics for power.
Nothing can be done about such people -- except force them to compete with other people, drawn from a far larger pool, including top people in highly paid professions who today can seldom afford to serve in Congress at the expense of their family's standard of living and financial security.
Do we want laws made by people who would sacrifice their families in order to get their hands on the levers of power? Or people who can serve in Congress because they inherited wealth -- and therefore have never had to personally experience what ordinary people experience and learn from, including government red tape?
We need laws written by people who have confronted life in the real world, not in the sheltered world of trust fund recipients or the insulated cocoon of academia. Nor do we need people who have nothing to offer in the private sector that would earn them more than what they currently receive in Congress.
Inexperienced power seekers include not only members of Congress but also their staffs, who are often fresh out of academia, with little experience in the real world, many untested notions, and often a touch of vanity as one of the anointed.
The idea of paying the kind of money that would attract the kind of people we need in government runs against many prejudices. Just plain envy is one. Some people feel that those they elect should not make so much more than they do.
But think about it: If your child had some life-threatening condition that required some very demanding surgery, would you worry about whether the surgeon who saves your child's life had an annual income that was several times what you make?
Members of Congress have not only trillions of dollars of our tax money in their hands, they also have in their hands our lives and the lives of our children and our nation. Are you going to worry about their incomes or about what caliber of people we can attract to make the momentous decisions that have to be made?
Yes, it would be nice if all public officials were self-sacrificing individuals who had no other thought than doing their best for their country. It would also be nice if voters watched elected officials 24/7. But the best is the enemy of the good. The road to Utopia has repeatedly turned out to be the road to , in countries around the world.
Thomas Sowell is the prolific author of books such as Black Rednecks and White Liberals and Applied Economics.
Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com
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Find this story at: http://www.townhall.com/opinion/colu...25/183702.html
The problem with term limits, in my opinion, is that while it divests Congress of the political parasites, it also creates the real risk that those with real ideas for progress and growth won't have enough time to make the difference that they can. I realize that there is a bit of pie in the sky thinking there, but I still believe that there are some in politics (on both sides) who wish to do good and have real ideas for making that happen.
In the rush to get rid of the problem-children, I'd hate to get rid of those who actually champion the people.
Web cams in every office.
Done.
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