Term Limits

[Desert_Fox]

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I know that there are those who feel we need experienced congressmen and women; that the longer they are in office the more they know how to operate.

My thought is, I wish that we had less operators who are scamming the system than neophytes who have not had the time to become jaded.

Two examples; Mitch McConnell has been in office for almost 29 years and his agenda is to strengthen the Republican party, the country be damned.  Paul Ryan has been a Representative for 20 years and thank god he’s retiring.  But what is said about McConnell promoting the party over country goes for him as well.

I would suggest that term limits of 3 terms for a Representative and 2 for a Senator would be sufficient.  If they haven’t helped the U.S. by then, they aren’t going to, and if they have, then let them work with new blood to show them how to further the government and help the citizens of the U.S.

One more example; Chuck Grassley who has been a Senator for almost 38 years and did his best – and succeeded in pushing through Kavanaugh’s nomination for the Supreme Court.

". . . those who claim to know the Mind of God, who will tell you what God thinks and how He will judge and condemn others—those people are the greatest of all blasphemers." Aloysius Xingu Leng Pendergast

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[Capricorn]

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Term limits are not good IMO.

Our election should be the term limit.

Otherwise there will be too much power on the lobbyists who will game the system. Instead of senior Senators or HR guiding the junior ones, it will be the lobbyists.

 

On one hand, yes, we have people like Mitch McConnell are assholes and damaging to the American people and the country, but we also have had stalwarts like Ted Kennedy or now Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren etc.

I also happen to be listening to Thom Hartman on Sirius XM today and he made similar points too, specially with the shadow government that will form with lobbyists taking power.

At least now, it is up to the American people, however stupid some maybe to vote for people like Trump, Scott Walker, Mitch or Paul Ryan etc.

" All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force. " — George Orwell.

[Dragon]

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It’s not just the lobbyists. All the real work in Washington is done by civil servants, government employees who are in for the long haul no matter who is elected or what policies they’re charged with implementing. They are not answerable to the electorate.

Every newbie in Washington relies heavily on these experienced people to get the work done. The more newbies there are, the more power and influence the civil service will have. With term limits we’ll essentially be replacing elected officials as soon as they’ve gotten up to speed with newbies who haven’t a clue and have to turn to the civil service to hold their hands walk them through the process, which takes years.

Quickly, the civil service will be effectively running our government and they answer to no one elected by the people.

On a more subjective note, I don’t like the idea of anybody telling me who I can’t vote for. And it makes no sense to me to fire an employee who’s doing a great job and replace him with an unknown coming in off the street.

We have enough trouble already by electing people who not only don’t understand the function of government, but even work against it, meaning against we the people. They’re called Republicans. As long as they’re in the mix we need to retain the best of our players on our team if we ever hope to keep the US in a world leadership position.

[Capricorn]

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Dragon wrote:

It’s not just the lobbyists. All the real work in Washington is done by civil servants, government employees who are in for the long haul no matter who is elected or what policies they’re charged with implementing. They are not answerable to the electorate. Every newbie in Washington relies heavily on these experienced people to get the work done. The more newbies there are, the more power and influence the civil service will have. With term limits we’ll essentially be replacing elected officials as soon as they’ve gotten up to speed with newbies who haven’t a clue and have to turn to the civil service to hold their hands walk them through the process, which takes years. Quickly, the civil service will be effectively running our government and they answer to no one elected by the people. On a more subjective note, I don’t like the idea of anybody telling me who I can’t vote for. And it makes no sense to me to fire an employee who’s doing a great job and replace him with an unknown coming in off the street. We have enough trouble already by electing people who not only don’t understand the function of government, but even work against it, meaning against we the people. They’re called Republicans. As long as they’re in the mix we need to retain the best of our players on our team if we ever hope to keep the US in a world leadership position.

Yep, a newbie will just become the bureaucrats rubber stamp.

" All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force. " — George Orwell.

[Desert_Fox]

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Good points by Dragon and Cappy but I stand by my opinion.

Lobbyist can be controlled by rules and regulations and enforcement of those rules and regulations.  As for the civil service employees; aren’t they the ones running things on a day to day basis anyway?

The very fact that we have McConnell and Ryan calling the steps in a disruptive government rather than a government that leads is, in my opinion, proof of the need for term limits.

As for our votes; the government led by these career politicians and Trump are doing their best to make sure that if you aren’t a died in the wool conservative, bigot, xenophobe, misogynist, your vote doesn’t count.

The other day a Republican election committee removed a bus load of senior citizens from their bus as they were on their way to early vote in Georgia.

I am sorely concerned about the stability of our government.

". . . those who claim to know the Mind of God, who will tell you what God thinks and how He will judge and condemn others—those people are the greatest of all blasphemers." Aloysius Xingu Leng Pendergast

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