Almost every time I listen to the news on TV or radio and they speak about national political news, I shutter! At least 85% of the time the comment or praise or criticism is directed towards the President. In our governmental system, the President is a very powerful man, no doubt. However, most of our society has completely missed the big picture. The 435 mental midgets on capital hill are the main source of the problem in almost any domestic political issue and especially those involving new laws and the money that is linked with those new laws!
The president only signs the bill into law and then either takes the credit for its success or deflects blame for its failure in true political form! The congress, specifically the House of Representatives, holds the governmental wallet and appropriates money to pay for the newly signed in law. The ones that put together the federal budget and allocate funds to various programs are in Congress. All the pork in the bills come from congress and almost every politician on the hill looks the other way to the pork in each bill. There are a couple politicians that are against pork in bills but you can count them on your hands for sure.
What's the reason for pork? Payback, pure and simple. Pork is the payback for them getting their bills pushed through or a vote for their bills, etc. as well as political support for those not on the hill. Yes payback to lobbyists. Too many of us yell and scream about lobbyists. Here is the secret people.....when you write your Senator or Congressman, you are lobbying them and by definition you are now a lobbyist. THAT IS NOT BAD! That is GOOD and what our founding fathers wanted! That's why the freedom of speech amendment was the 1st amendment to the Constitution. The whole design of our government was that anyone could speak to our elected officials regardless of social status, etc. Now what I think is bad are the paid big time political lobbyists but you can't get around them in our system. In one aspect or another they will always be there as that is our system's design! That doesn't mean there is no solution!
So, why are lobbyists bad? We allow them to be by electing the same people over and over again into office! Think about it? We all do favors for each other in one fashion or another. At work, at school, in our family, with our friends, everywhere there is that "please do this...." or "please pick up ....for me" and so on. Now, let me ask you this; Who do you "owe" the most favors to? Someone you have known for a week or someone you have known since grade school? Time is the factor here.
So it goes with congress. The longer they are on the hill, the more favors they will "owe" and the larger favors owed will build up so to speak. I was born and raised in West Virginia. Senator Byrd was the longest sitting US Senator in our history. He was in congress for 57 years! Senator Kennedy represented Massachusetts for how many decades before he passed away? Now, how many favors do you think either of these men owed someone? A big time lobbyist can hold that "chip" in their pocket and wait for something really big before cashing it in with politicians like these as the public keeps sending them back to DC election after election. It's NOT the fault of the lobbyist, it's our fault! Yep, we are the ones to blame for pork and silly bills passed, etc.! Look in the mirror the next time you want to throw rocks at the TV's political new cast.
Now the solution, or a portion of the solution anyway; TERM LIMITS! If they can't be in congress for more than X number of years, I would say 12 would be a good number. Now big money lobbyists can't hold their "chip" for 25 years and something huge to cash it in with the politician they have helped along the way! They won't be able to "invest" 10's of 100's of millions of dollars in a single politician and wait for the right moment to get that investment paid back them. Their "guy" (or girl) won't be there that long! Someone new will be in there that doesn't owe that lobbyist a thing (well yet anyway)!
There are many other steps to keep the big money lobbyists' influence down to a minimum level but step #1 is term limits for all of congress! If you keep the screen door shut at home all the time, then you don't have to worry about choosing the fly swatter or fly paper to kill the flies in the house! Don't let them in to begin with and those few that do get in, the problem is not a big one and much much easier to handle at that point!!!
Of course no politician today will vote for self imposing term limits on themselves and the grand institution they have built up. It will take an amendment to the Constitution for this to happen. That will be my next blog. What amendments we as Americans need to have ratified to our Constitution for the fix to take affect! One of which will have this idea of term limits in it and a couple other things that go with the legislative process in general!
Please let me know what you think. How do you realistically put a slow-down on the lobbyist thing in Washington?
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