Dakota Beacon

I have often advised strongly against pursuing “term limits” for Congress.  (http://dakotabeacon.com/entry/sally_morris_they_didnt_need_term_limits_in_utah/, http://dakotabeacon.com/entry/sally_morris_something_rotten_in_the_land_of_cotton/, http://dakotabeacon.com/entry/sally_morris_the_sting_of_and_article_v_cos/) I have also stated my  various reasons. I’ll summarize them thusly:

1. The balance of power in Washington D.C. will shift away from people who are elected and toward civil servants who not only do not answer to voters, but are nearly impossible to fire if you think they are not doing their job properly.  The civil servants - government agencies such as the IRS, Social Security Administration, the V.A., the EPA and all the rest of the alphabet - have their own agendas. These have little or nothing to do with your interests. As we have fewer years of experience in our members of Congress the power wilchingl shift away from Congress and toward agencies.  Our laws will become increasingly generalized and we will instead by governed by policies we have no influence in.  ("Yes, Minister" was a BBC comedy which showcased the machinations of Sir Humphrey Applebee, a career civil servant, and Jim Hacker, Member of Parliament, who finds him an adversary in attempting to fulfill his campaign promises. Well worth watching if you doubt my argument here.  If you are honest with yourself you will find that your greatest issues with government are with governmental agencies, not congressmen. You can't vote against the IRS agent but you can surely impact the congressman.)

2. The person who will run for Congress will do so only as a stepping stone in his career.  He will use his brief hour in Congress to prime his options for after he is term limited out of office.  Few really committed people will decide to run for something they know will be time limited even if they do an excellent job.  

3. As a voter, you have great influence over a member of Congress who is running for re-election.  You have none - I said, NONE - over someone who is not running in the next election. A Congressman makes an investment in responding to his constituency if he wants to continue to hold office.  A voter makes an investment in a candidate for office by supporting him and giving him his vote. Will you even feel like bothering if the candidate will be out of office right away? Will the Congressman invest himself in pleasing his constituents if they have no influence over his future in office?  Of COURSE not.  

4. As a member of Congress for a limited time once elected, he will begin spending more and more of his time trying to accommodate the corporation, non-profit, lobby or whatever he hopes to continue his career with.  He knows for sure that won’t be YOU.

5. A person running for office cares about the people who can either put him in office or replace him.  A person who is NOT running has nothing to lose by brushing you off. Why should he care?  

You are all smart enough to have figured this out for yourselves.  So why are you on this quixotic mission to undo the good work of our founding fathers?  We all need to understand the many delicate balances which are built into our highly successful form of government (it IS successful to the extent we participate).  When our Constitution does not protect us it is invariably because we are not following it. We depart from it. Income tax was a departure. Social Security was a departure.  The Department of Education was a departure, as was the EPA and all those other dysfunctional agencies. If we are not too lazy to take an active part in our own government our Constitution and our Legislative body will work for us.  If we are too lazy to live in freedom then they won’t. No simple minded “band aid” like artificial term limits will fix the problems created by our laziness and neglect. Those who glibly assert that they will just have not studied either human logic nor the experience of history.  

For those people, I am linking this article, which combines logic and recent experience which supports that logic.  Please read this before you do any more campaigning for “term limits”!

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