Originally Posted by Brian Austin Whitney
Scott,

That's why we need to cut off ALL pork. It's like saying we want to drive 100 MPH on the highway, and everyone else should drive 65. We need to start enforcing the same speed limit for everyone consistently. If we want to raise it for all to 70.. that's fine. But it should be the same across the board and then enforced. If we need legislation for something, we should pass a bill that applies to everyone. There shouldn't be any allowance for unrelated issues to be tagged on to the bills. Line Item veto would go a long way towards fixing that. Also, if we had a balanced budget amendment, then all spending would have to pass the muster of everyone. And this pork stuff would get shot down before it made it onto a bill because it would decrease everyone elses ability to get things done. And if we had term limits, the good old boy/girl system would die a quick death. Sure, the lobbyists would still be there but I think we should start creating tighter laws there as well. Why should any lobbyist be allowed to spend any money on any candidate? (in other words, why should they be able to take people on vacations or golf outings etc?). I also think we should require law makers to work full time year round. They should have to have office hours either in DC or their local offices all year, like all other workers. They are paid enough to work full time. Local lawmakers often aren't, so their schedules should also be mandated but with time left to run their own businesses etc. People should view serving in government like serving a stint in the military. You put most of everything else aside for a period of time and do the work and then go back to your regular life when it is over. Want a long political career? Then server limited stints in your local then state and then national government. Then move on with life.

I also think we should open up the debates to the top 5 political parties and expand them to more formats and topics. In the last 4 weeks we should then shrink it down to the top 3. I also think that we should require photo ID's to vote in all local, state and federal elections. In Indiana, there was a surpreme court case over this issue and they ruled in favor of letting them require a photo ID. It was just in time too because ACORN was the plaitiff suing Indiana over the issue and guess what? In Indianapolis, ACORN has helped register so many fraudulent registrations that 105% of the people are registered (yes, that's 5% more than actually exist). Fraud is rampant due to the efforts of ACORN and they are a political organization with the goal of electing 1 single party only. That's very dangerous to our national security and we can't allow that rampant and out in the open voter registration fraud. If they'd won their Supreme Court case, all those fake voters could have voted without ID and without any chance of verification. Anyone who supports that is, in my opinion, un-American. Anyone supporting that rampant voter fraud should be held under charges of treason.

With the rampant problems we have (and they are getting worse as I type this) I think it's time for some new rules in our government, giving it back to the people.

Brian


I have to pretty much agree with you down the line, Brian. Certainly I support a line-item veto and a balanced budget requirement.

I've gone back and forth on term limits but I seem to finally be converging on the idea that they are good. The argument that used to sway me was, "but what if you get someone really good"? I've come to the conclusion though that the opposite is true almost all of the time.....

As for the debates, I know you were serious and I don't think it's a bad idea. But what initially flashed through my mind was that it could be like Survivor. The low performer gets voted out each week! Actually, the idea is growing on me as I type. Instead of voting for someone, we would be voting against people until there was only one left. grin

To make it last all season we could have preliminaries. Five libertarians go at it until they're down to one. Then five Republicans and so on. Then the winners from each party start the final elimination round. Really makes me wonder if things would have turned out differently or not... grin

Scott