Michael1942's Blog

Blah, blah, blah. The political climate is close to what I imagine bedlam would have been. The spin doctors are spinning, the advertisers are advertising and the poster makers are making posters but none of this tells us what they will do when elected. We voters should realize that nothing is ever done overnight and never will be. To become angry with the people we elected because they did not accomplish what they said they would as fast as we would like is being naive if not a bit stupid. There is or never will be an elected official or office seeker who will not tell the voters what they want to hear in order to assume an office and this thinking crosses all political lines. So it is reasonable to think that we the voters are more at fault than the people we elect. The office seekers and holders are too afraid of being ousted for telling the truth so they feed our fears with innuendo, lies and other made up stories. The founding fathers never intended serving the people as a lifetime job but our current servers have managed to stay on long after their usefulness.

This recently this hit my inbox, I believe this is something that will help us move forward. I have been in favor of term limits for a long time and major changes in the term limits of our Congress, the long term Congressional members have become talking heads taking care of themselves as they have no fear of the voters and believe they can continue to mislead the public.

Subject:New Amendment

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why?
Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971…before computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land…all because of public pressure.

Congressional Reform Act of 2011
1. Term Limits.
12 years only, one of the possible options below.

A. Two Six-year Senate terms
B. Six Two-year House terms
C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms

2. No Tenure / No Pension.
A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/11.

The American people did not make the current contract with members of Congress. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.