Government Policy and Budget Discussion Thread (no politics)

[Cincydawg]

My partial solution to political ads is that a campaign cannot mention the name of ANYONE but the candidate(s) on their ticket, no other names.

Any PAC cannot mention ANY names of anyone in office.  This might pass muster.

[847badgerfan]

3 policies the US govt has to put in place if we ever want to fix this mess.

1) term limits on senators and representatives.
 
2) campaign finance reform. get the money out of politics.

3) keep it simple stupid. these bills are convoluted and 2,500 pages long. INSANITY.

I don't know about term limits. We are looking at the "now" and saying "dammit, you've been there too long." And some have, for sure.

But, some of them are good at what they do. Like, a few. I think the real solution to term limits is #2. Take the big money* out and give the power back to the people. When that happens, the people are more likely to take term limits into their own hands - at the voting booth. 


* The big money keeps candidates in during the primaries, which are often more important than the generals, due to gerrymandering the maps. Incumbents get the big money donations and therefore get all the TV time. They win in the general because of the district they are in. The BS maps need to go. I guess that's #4 on this list?

[medinabuckeye1]

1) term limits on senators and representatives. 

First, as @CWSooner pointed out, this would require a Constitutional Amendment and those are hard to achieve.  

Second, I wholeheartedly disagree.  I realize that this is an unpopular position but I've seen term limits in action and the ACTUAL impact is NOT the INTENDED impact.  

Here in Ohio we enacted term limits for State Representatives and State Senators a while back.  It was introduced as a voter initiative and passed overwhelmingly.  Do you want to know who benefited?  

• The bureaucrats, 
• The lobbyists, and
• The Political Parties.  

I'll explain:
Before term-limits individual State Reps and State Senators were powerful political entities unto themselves.  They were answerable only to the voters so they could go after bureaucrats, ignore lobbyists, and buck their party.  They might not have done those things as much as you or I might like, but at least they COULD if they chose to.  

Now State Reps and State Senators are NOT political entities unto themselves.  They have a lifespan of just eight years.  Lazy and inefficient bureaucrats KNOW that they will live longer than the Reps and Senators that allegedly oversee them.  If a Rep or Senator comes after them all they have to do is stall and the Rep or Senator in question will be gone in a few years.  

Then there is another problem.  No first-time candidate could ever admit this but the reality is that a new State Rep or State Senator needs at least two years and probably closer to four to figure out what the heck is going on.  A new State Rep or Senator doesn't know which bureaucrats are conscientious people doing their best to run their departments and which ones are borderline criminals just riding on the system.  By the time a State Rep/Senator figures these things out, they are on their way out the door and there is nothing they can do to fix the underlying issues.  


The REALLY big winners from Term Limits have been the Political Parties.  Back before Term Limits, as I stated above, Reps and Senators were entities unto themselves.  The Parties had little or no leverage over them and they could simply choose to do whatever they thought was right regardless of whether it was in keeping with their Party's wishes.  The reality now is that State Reps and Senators KNOW that they will need a new job in a few years.  They ONLY way to ensure that they will get a job in a few years is to be a loyal partisan.  Then you can expect your party to provide for you once you are term-limited out.  

I know a LOT of people who support term limits and I think that nearly all of them have their hearts in the right place.  They all *THINK* that term limits will fix problems that they see.  The fact is that the lot of you are dead wrong.  Term Limits make the existing problems worse.  

[847badgerfan]

Excellent post MB.

[Cincydawg]

Term limits are not a panacea and in any event aren't going to happen anyway, so the point is moot.

Most people vote the same way folks are OSU or Michigan fans, they vote for their TEAM, end of discussion, those other guys are horrible.  Not many of "us" actually consider what might be best for the country (or least worst usually) and go back and forth.  I'm sure a lot of posters here will claim to be indies and vote both ways of course, and that probably is true, but it is fairly rare.

My own view of voting is that it is a statistical waste of time and effort.

[FearlessF]

term limits will merely change the names and faces more often - those names and faces behaving the way of their predecessors doesn't change

I'm not as concerned with campaign money in politics as money after the election

let's do a deep audit on every politician at the time they are elected, then do that audit annually to see if they are somehow collecting far more money than their salary 

[Cincydawg]

I don't think national politicians get "paid off" directly because of the risk, and they are more sophisticated in how they do it.  And of course many of them were wealthy before they got there.

Influence is often more important to them than just money.  And of course anyone with access to them -cousins, uncles, sons, etc. - are going to attract "attention".   

I think mayors in general are more obviously corrupt, they put Uncle Joe on the Water Board at $300,000 a year etc.

[847badgerfan]

I don't think national politicians get "paid off" directly because of the risk, and they are more sophisticated in how they do it.  And of course many of them were wealthy before they got there.

Influence is often more important to them than just money.  And of course anyone with access to them -cousins, uncles, sons, etc. - are going to attract "attention". 

I think mayors in general are more obviously corrupt, they put Uncle Joe on the Water Board at $300,000 a year etc.

Those who profited greatly off of insider information last month need to be addressed, and removed. 


Uncle Joe on the water board is a huge problem, everywhere. Crony jobs are killing some states (mine) with state and local taxes.

[betarhoalphadelta]

term limits will merely change the names and faces more often - those names and faces behaving the way of their predecessors doesn't change

I'm not as concerned with campaign money in politics as money after the election

let's do a deep audit on every politician at the time they are elected, then do that audit annually to see if they are somehow collecting far more money than their salary

Without bringing "politics" into it, I think there are clear recent examples of corruption...  

As was seen recently with several (on both sides) of people in Congress and the Senate selling off stock prior to Coronavirus hitting in force, likely because they knew that things were going to be dire all while publicly not sounding an alarm or doing anything to improve our response.

And now it comes out that a certain prominent politician consistently touting hydroxychloroquine as a miracle treatment happens to have a financial stake in a company who makes it...

As far as I'm concerned, if you get to Congress, the Senate, or POTUS, your assets should be held in a blind trust such that it's not possible to trade off of private [or classified] information that you're not making available to the American people.

[Cincydawg]

The story about their selling off stock needs investigation, but I'm not yet willing to claim it was done unethically or illegally.  At least one Senator had a good explanation for it, if true, and that is easily verified.  Another asked for an investigation.

And both individuals were wealthy before they go there.

[847badgerfan]

Without bringing "politics" into it, I think there are clear recent examples of corruption... 

As was seen recently with several (on both sides) of people in Congress and the Senate selling off stock prior to Coronavirus hitting in force, likely because they knew that things were going to be dire all while publicly not sounding an alarm or doing anything to improve our response.

And now it comes out that a certain prominent politician consistently touting hydroxychloroquine as a miracle treatment happens to have a financial stake in a company who makes it...

As far as I'm concerned, if you get to Congress, the Senate, or POTUS, your assets should be held in a blind trust such that it's not possible to trade off of private [or classified] information that you're not making available to the American people.

The only question I'd have on that is if he actually knows what his mutual funds hold. Holdings in those change all the time. I have some, and I couldn't tell you with any certainty what they hold today, held yesterday, or what they are looking at for tomorrow. I just know generalities and I trust the managers to make sound decisions.

[MichiFan87]

I want to see the NPVIC get passed to make the electoral college obsolete and make the popular vote matter. It's getting close to 200 votes worth and just needs to get to 270. Yes, they have been mostly democratic states to this point, but there are conservative states that are supposedly starting to consider it more seriously.

Campaign finance is definitely a big issue.

Term limits have already shown to be counterproductive for reasons explained above.

[847badgerfan]

The story about their selling off stock needs investigation, but I'm not yet willing to claim it was done unethically or illegally.  At least one Senator had a good explanation for it, if true, and that is easily verified.  Another asked for an investigation.

And both individuals were wealthy before they go there.

You pretty much have to be these days. That's a problem too.


I think I'd make a good rep. I also know I have zero chance of ever being one.

[847badgerfan]

I want to see the NPVIC get passed to make the electoral college obsolete and make the popular vote matter. It's getting close to 200 votes worth and just needs to get to 270. Yes, they have been mostly democratic states to this point, but there are conservative states that are supposedly starting to consider it more seriously.

Campaign finance is definitely a big issue.

Term limits have already shown to be counterproductive for reasons explained above.

This would be the end of the Republic that our founders gave us.

Nobody would ever campaign in Wyoming. Nobody would ever campaign in California. Nobody would ever campaign in Alabama. Nobody would ever campaign in Illinois.

That's about all I can say on this matter, in this thread and on this board.