Tag: change congress
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Don’t Rely on the Altruism of Baby Boomers
David Brooks must have thought yesterday was April Fools Day – that or he thinks he’s getting old so he decided to pen a column painting a rosy picture for seniors by coming to a senile conclusion. In The Geezers’ Crusade he comes to this wildly impossible conclusion: It now seems clear that the only…
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Change I Could Believe In
photo credit: jasoneppink Back in October I wrote about the dangers of a crisis mentality and tried to show that the abuse of crisis was not a one-party trait. I see that Will Wilkinson did a better job of showing that this month in Let the next crisis go to waste: The Aughts began in…
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Political Cultures
photo credit: www.charlietphoto.com There are two political cultures that we need to change in order to have a healthy “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” in this country. The first is the culture among the voters as defined by how thy perceive those who hold political office. The second is…
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Eight Ideas for Reform
Kyle Mathews shares eight steps he believes would produce a more functional congress at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen. It is an interesting list including ideas I’ve heard before and a few new ideas. There is also some good discussion in the comments. I thought it would be worth sharing here in the order that…
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Hit Them Where it Hurts
[quote]As Congress finds new and ever more inventive ways to spend money (both real money and imaginary money) more and more voters are waking up to find themselves becoming fiscal conservatives. First off, I must say that there are not nearly enough of us among the voters and secondly I feel compelled to add that…
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Knowledge – the Key to Sound Government
photo credit: TheAllNewAventuresOfMe Although I had never heard it before, this quote in Utah Policy really captured the essence of some of what I have been trying to convey in posts and comments on what makes an ideal legislator: “A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue…
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The Dangers of a Crisis Mentality
photo credit: paparutzi Soon after the election last year in the Wall Street Journal, Gerald Seib wrote about the opportunity presented by the financial crisis for Barack Obama. Perhaps he was simply reacting to Rahm Emanuel’s statement that, “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Seib summed up that perspective on crisis…
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Senator Jim DeMint on Term Limits
I started a discussion on term limits a couple of years ago on this site and between what I said then and what I have said on other sites I think my position on term limits is fairly clear – I believe that term limits generally produce benefits that far outweigh the drawbacks that opponents…
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Legislator as Fundraiser
When it comes to raising money to run a campaign an ideal legislator needs to understand the real value of money in politics. They need to accept that a serious campaign will require more money than they can personally supply (unless they have significant personal wealth). They need to be comfortable asking people to support…
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Re-Founding Requires Renewed Statesmanship
photo credit: mharrsch Bob Henline strikes again, but this time there is nothing he said that I would argue with. . . . all we end up doing is enacting more ridiculous laws that only spin the problems, never really resulting in any tangible effects. That leads us to ask the question of why this…