How to Fix Our Democracy

DzynKingRTR said:

We desperately need term limits for both the House and Senate. These career politicians are not helping to fix any issues. Hank Johnson got re-elected again. The same guy that thought Guam was going to literally tip over got re-elected. I say give the House and Senate a 12 year rule. You cannot serve more than 12 years at either the House or Senate. If you cannot get anything accomplished in 12 years, you have failed at your job and someone else needs a shot. More proof people are idiots, a dead guy won in the Nevada state assembly. He got 60% of the vote.

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I agree and would add that there should be age limits for the President, members of Congress, Department heads, and the Supreme Court. Maybe 70 or 72. There is a minimum age, there should be a maximum age.

GrayTide said:

I agree and would add that there should be age limits for the President, members of Congress, Department heads, and the Supreme Court. Maybe 70 or 72. There is a minimum age, there should be a maximum age.

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A co-worker and I were discussing that very thing yesterday. He is a big liberal and I am more libertarian and it is the first time we have agreed. He suggested they should have the same retirement age as the rest of us. He actually brought it up with regards to Ginsburg. He has doubts she is "all there".

I do believe when these officials reach a certain age, they have accomplished their personal and professional goals and, are set financially. My biggest concern is at that age they have lost touch with what most Americans are dealing with and quite frankly probably no longer care. Setting some term limits and age requirements would be a good start

GrayTide said:

I agree and would add that there should be age limits for the President, members of Congress, Department heads, and the Supreme Court. Maybe 70 or 72. There is a minimum age, there should be a maximum age.

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At the very least there should be a more comprehensive physical to determine mental fitness. We are now outliving our cognitive skills.

bama_wayne1 said:

You left out President Obama. "If you like your plan you can keep your plan."

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we were able to keep our plan

DzynKingRTR said:

We desperately need term limits for both the House and Senate. These career politicians are not helping to fix any issues. Hank Johnson got re-elected again. The same guy that thought Guam was going to literally tip over got re-elected. I say give the House and Senate a 12 year rule. You cannot serve more than 12 years at either the House or Senate. If you cannot get anything accomplished in 12 years, you have failed at your job and someone else needs a shot. More proof people are idiots, a dead guy won in the Nevada state assembly. He got 60% of the vote.

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I agree 100%, term limits for ANY elected position and a complete ban on lobbyist.

92tide said:

we were able to keep our plan

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I didn't get to keep mine.

My employer said it was now considered a "Cadillac" plan under the current ObamaCare rules and our Insurance has sucked ever since.

hollisx4 said:

I didn't get to keep mine.

My employer said it was now considered a "Cadillac" plan under the current ObamaCare rules and our Insurance has sucked ever since.

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I got to keep mine. With a hefty increase in premium. Oh and I had to drop my wife. So then we had to pay 2 premiums. But hey, as long as it allowed some 26 year old to stay on mommy and daddies insurance, it was all worth it.

hollisx4 said:

I didn't get to keep mine.

My employer said it was now considered a "Cadillac" plan under the current ObamaCare rules and our Insurance has sucked ever since.

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I was able to keep my plan in name only. The name of the plan is the same, but it is a way worse plan. This year it was so bad the company did not renew and we changed providers and it is worse than last years, but cheaper for the company.

CharminTide said:

I found this tremendously helpful.

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and here i thought the worst part about it was that sluts got free birth control on my dime

Bama 8Ball said:

I got to keep mine. With a hefty increase in premium. Oh and I had to drop my wife. So then we had to pay 2 premiums. But hey, as long as it allowed some 26 year old to stay on mommy and daddies insurance, it was all worth it.

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i understand your frustration about the whole health ins situation.....but, its sentiment like this that the OP is alluding to (i think)......the conversation is falling back onto talking points and tit-for-tat argument. we need serious dialogue about changing and improving the political landscape in our nation. i support pres trump on some things and disagree vehemently about other policies and his personality traits. but that doesnt mean we cant have a civil discourse about it without the conversation completely reverting back to 'well this politician did this so many years go' or 'well the current person you support is a big fat dummy and so are you because you support him'.

to the original question about improving our democracy....start with term limits (no more than 12 yrs for reps and senators as other have alluded to) and limit the influence of lobbyists......and forbid previous reps and senators from becoming lobbyists after they've served their 12 yrs in DC

twofbyc said:

You left out the source of the problem - money in politics.
Publicly funded campaigns (Beto and Bernie say hi), limit amount with no pac’s allowed.
You will never reform jack squat unless/until this is done because:
The rich (the minority) control our elections and thus our elected officials.
Nothing changes without getting big money out of our elective process.


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If you take the money out of the process, all we would see are blank ballots.

rjtide said:

i understand your frustration about the whole health ins situation.....but, its sentiment like this that the OP is alluding to (i think)......the conversation is falling back onto talking points and tit-for-tat argument. we need serious dialogue about changing and improving the political landscape in our nation. i support pres trump on some things and disagree vehemently about other policies and his personality traits. but that doesnt mean we cant have a civil discourse about it without the conversation completely reverting back to 'well this politician did this so many years go' or 'well the current person you support is a big fat dummy and so are you because you support him'.

to the original question about improving our democracy....start with term limits (no more than 12 yrs for reps and senators as other have alluded to) and limit the influence of lobbyists......and forbid previous reps and senators from becoming lobbyists after they've served their 12 yrs in DC

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I agree. There was no call for the salty response. My apologies to Charmin and the board.

And I agree wholeheartedly that career politicians are a huge part of the problem. I have said before, in my "utopia" No politician would be paid more than the average school teacher and have to work 40 hours a week minimum their entire term. Then you would see who really wanted to serve the people.

92tide said:

we were able to keep our plan

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I'm glad you could, many weren't.

Well let’s face it, our founding fathers probably never anticipated that people in their 60’s-90’s would be in politics let alone for 20-50 years ie... Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy. Of course people didn’t tend to live that long either. Term limits are a must. When they wrote in lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court, they generally expected the Justice to either retire after 10-15 maybe 20 years or simply die of “old age”.

Think about it you “only” have to be 35 years old to even run for President. Is any 35 year old going to be elected anytime soon??? Absolutely not. In the 1700’s 35 was basically 55. People were simply a lot more mature back the.

I think we need to keep the electoral college. I don’t like the idea of 2-4 states deciding for all 50 states. I also don’t think we need to add anymore states either. Constitutional Republic > Direct Democracy any day. I think a Direct Democracy works best in a homogenous nation.

Long story short I think the most realistic change we can expected see anytime soon is term limits. Just my two cents.

hollisx4 said:

I agree 100%, term limits for ANY elected position and a complete ban on lobbyist.

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I am not sure what you mean by "lobbyist."
If I go to DC and ask my Representative to appropriate money for battlefield preservation, am I lobbying? If I give him a $10 re-election campaign contribution, is that lobbying?
If I go to any other Representative in support of the same issue, would that be lobbying?

CharminTide said:

I honestly believe making the House proportional to the U.S. population, as it was designed to be, is better than the broken system we have today. Now, if you wanted to allow House districts to cross state borders and/or combine small neighboring states under a single representative to reduce the overall size of the House, I'd support you. But you'd need to amend the Constitution, which won't happen since small states would have to agree to give up their disproportional power. At the end of the day, I do not think violating the principle of "one man, one vote" is acceptable simply because it's convenient.

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Well, this is a federal (or as antebellum politicians used to say "confederate") republic. It is Republic of Republics, not a unitary state. If one had been proposed in 1787, no state would have voted for it.
A substantive part of the deal they struck was that small states would get the same representation in the senate as the large states. In exchange for this, high population states would get a much larger representation in the lower house. Invalid that provision and ethically, you invalidate the entire deal.

Wyoming only has 579,315 people, so the size argument falls flat.

That's a fair point.

Just section off the residential part of D.C. and let them choose whether they want to represent themselves or petition Maryland/Virginia to expand their borders and absorb them. Problem solved. Frankly, it seems odd that you'd advocate the federal government forcing a state to expand its borders and adopt a large metropolitan area.

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I never said I would force Maryland to accept the retrocession. The people of Alexandria petitioned Congress and the General Assembly to retrocede that portion of the District south of the Potomac. All parties agreed. If the people of DC want their representation in Congress, the people of Alexandria set the precedent: retrocession. I think Maryland would be happy to have that property back.

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Bubbaloo said:

If you take the money out of the process, all we would see are blank ballots.

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I didn’t say take money out of the process. Where did you get that?


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