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Has the time come for term limits in Congress and Senate?
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In a column from CNN Politics, it has been reported that South Carolina Senator, Republican Jim DeMint, along with several colleagues, is advocating for term limits in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The term limits would limit all representatives to 12 years of service in the Senate and 6 years of service in the House.
Has its time come? Speaking to many of my own colleagues, and paying attention to what is being said on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, it seems that the idea has been advocated by many people, and has been for the last few months. And this is not the first time this idea has come up. According to the same article from CNN, the idea was proposed in 1994 by Republicans, and the idea allowed Republicans to take the majority in Congress. However, even with a unanimous vote on the Republican side of the House, the bill failed to meet the 2/3 majority vote required to pass.
"As long as members have the chance to spend their lives in Washington, their interests will always skew toward spending taxpayer dollars to buyoff special interests, covering over corruption in the bureaucracy, fundraising, relationship building among lobbyists, and trading favors for pork -- in short, amassing their own power." DeMint
Have we seen such corruption? Of course we have, and we have seen it in both parties. Career politicians almost always turn to the interests of corporations rather then their constituents. This is why the American people are always angry at what is going on in Congress. Our representatives are not representing us, rather they are representing the industries that finance their campaigns. They represent the welfare of corporations.
The first bailout is a prime example of this. When the federal government told all of us that AIG needed to be bailed out or it would spell economic disaster for the entire nation, people went along with it. But were we actually represented with this? Or were our tax dollars stripped from our pockets to finance a major corporation which was run so poorly it could not keep itself afloat?
With the acceptance of this bailout during the Bush administration, the Obama administration has continued these bailouts. More and more tax dollars have gone to keep several companies from failing, completely at the discretion of the federal government. Some companies, like GMAC, have received more then one bailout. General Motors has been purchased by the government with our tax dollars under the guise that we would all become equal shareholders in this failing company. I'm still waiting on my stock certificate. I want to sell it and get my nickel back.
Is this the kind of government we wanted, a government which would bailout the super rich on the backs of the middle class and poor? Or is it time that we tell Congress we've had enough. We want representatives who will actually represent the people of this country, not the corporations. If we allow for term limits, we can eliminate some of the corruption that comes with long term "servitude".
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" - John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834-1902) And the longer a Congressman or Senator stays in office, the more power they feel they have.
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