Institutional Reforms

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Much of the way congress conducts business contributes to the mess we are in. Unpopular or pointless but expensive bills get passed because the system is designed to all members to vote in their personal best interest then hide behind party lines.

It has to stop.

I would like to see:

* No more omnibus spending bills. Break 'em up. Don't let them hide funding for NPR in the middle of the general budget that includes the DoD. Make the various departments, i.e. Energy and Education, justify themselves in a public debate each new fiscal year. If they have too many separate bills to consider then obviously the government is too big. Prioritize and figure out what you can discuss within the course of a legislative year. Everything else withers on the vine.

* No long term spending. The military cannot be funded more than 2 years out. The idea was simple: if the military had long term funding they might get ambitious. If they can only survive on their own for 2 years then they would heed their elected masters. Well, the modern world proves that the military isn't the only organization that poses a threat to liberty. No government agency should be funded beyond 2 years.

* No more voice votes in congress. Make each member register their vote. No more of this "Sounds good enough for me" bullshit on passing the laws that micro-manage our lives.



What else?

[JohnnyReb]

Suits me except the military part. ....and the part of that that would concern me is long term R&D for new weapon systems that would take longer than 2 years to develope.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Constitutional amendment term limiting both houses, 3 terms for the Senate and 9 for the House (Just to equal the time Senators get).  The problem with State term limits is that the States that pass them and the people willing to follow them (Instead of fighting get the law changed when it becomes inconvenient for them, like that asshole Bloomberg) are not the people who are the problem.

I do not see this or any other meaningful reform actually happening, nor any sweeping reform of taxes or entitlements.  Congress is hopelessly broken and self-serving despite the fact there are men and women of good will and honest intentions in it, but there will never be enough of them to overcome the inertia of the institutionalized corruption in it.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Suits me except the military part. ....and the part of that that would concern me is long term R&D for new weapon systems that would take longer than 2 years to develope.

You can do things that take more than 2 years, i.e. build aircraft carriers. You just cannot allot payment longer than that. IOW: if it takes 10 years to do something expect to have to re-justify, re-examine the project every other year to decide if it is still worth paying for.

Constitutional amendment term limiting both houses, 3 terms for the Senate and 9 for the House (Just to equal the time Senators get).

And no pensions. It breeds careerism.

[thundley4]

Congress can make no laws from which they are exempt, like healthcare and social security.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Congress can make no laws from which they are exempt, like healthcare and social security.

Concur

IIRC: They even exempted themselves from such things as federal sexual harrassment statutes.

[Rick]

Let's dump all the current retirement funds in to Social Security and let them draw from that.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Concur

IIRC: They even exempted themselves from such things as federal sexual harrassment statutes.

They do this by making them apply only to the Executive Branch.  They made the government ethics laws work that way, for instance.  They regard it as a violation of 'Separation of powers' to set up an executive agency (Even one the President cannot directly control) like EEOC or Office of Government Ethics and then let it regulate their behavior.