Author: Redactor

One of the little-known facts about congressmen who voluntarily limit their terms in office is that most of them keep their word. Even state and local political leaders who usually don’t have a national spotlight shining on them also voluntarily limit their terms and also keep their word.

Yes, it’s been known to happen. And we’ve just found another. His name is Brent Steele, and he’s an Indiana representative who has announced that he won’t seek a fifth term. Why? Because in 1994, term limits was a major theme of his campaign. He advocated them, and now he’s going to live by them.

Steele didn’t succeed in bringing term limits to the whole Indiana legislature. But he knows one way he can make term limits a reality. As Steele puts it, “I was for [term limits] then and after eight years [in the legislature], I’m even more convinced I was right. People get too concerned with politics and not policy. It’s a pretty polluted process, and the only way I see changes is term limits. I believe people should get out every so often and let the process begin fresh.”

Steele, who has achieved the rank of House minority whip, says he has accomplished many of his goals as a legislator, though he is disappointed that the budget process is still ridden with favoritism and pork. But he’s ready to let somebody else tilt at that particular windmill.

“I served the right amount of time, in my mind,” he says. “I rose in leadership. I didn’t leave anything on the table.” Good for you, Brent Steele.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

There they go again. Foes of term limits in Michigan complaining that they are just too dumb to do their job, which these days requires some diligent budget-cutting. Only if they were allowed to stay in training wheels for more than a decade could they possibly have any idea.

“We don’t know how previous legislators addressed the same challenges because we weren’t there,” whines Representative Doug Hart. So Hart wants a constitutional amendment to extend the House and Senate’s six and eight-year limits to 12 years.

Hart’s helplessness here is more than a little maddening. After all, we’ve had the tool of the written word available for thousands of years now. Surely there must be some documentation of Michigan’s recent legislative past? Transcripts or something?

But if reading through all that is too much to ask, perhaps Mr. Hart can pick up the phone and talk to some of the former legislators. Those who really want to get things done are, of course, not so helpless.

Representative Mickey Mortimer points out that many members of the House Appropriations Committee have business experience. Mortimer says: “We were working in the ’80s in Michigan when we were in the rust belt environment and we had to have tight budgets and business constraints. If you have to tighten your belt, you have to tighten your belt. You run it like you would a business. You run it like you would your home.”

Representative Mortimer is right and Representative Hart is wrong. So have a heart, Hart. Instead of trying to gut democracy, how about just earning your paycheck?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Thank you Congressman Dick Armey of Texas for battling the Big Brotherism of the federal government. You know, that organization you’ve worked for these past 17 years.

Mr. Armey has criticized the National Park Service’s use of surveillance cameras to ticket speeders. He wrote to the Interior Department, “I am concerned that this may be seen as a step toward a Big Brother surveillance state, where the government monitors the comings and goings of its citizens.”

There’s only one problem with Armey’s position: He voted to put those cameras right where they are. Yes he did. He voted for that very legislation.

Of course, he doesn’t remember that because like most congressmen he didn’t read the bill. If he had read the bill, surely his “philosophical objections” would have caused him to reject it.

This is Washington’s dirty little secret. It’s called the ignorance defense and it’s quite popular on Capitol Hill. These “experts” don’t have a clue what they are even voting on. They have all that wonderful experience they keep telling us about . . . but it doesn’t matter how much experience you have if you don’t even read the legislation.

And who does? Ask YOUR congressman if he’s read every word of every bill he has ever cast a vote on. This will test his honesty, too, because he hasn’t.

If our congressmen don’t read the bills they vote on, who does? And who’s running the government? Boy, these are tough questions . . . maybe our experienced congressmen can tell us the answers. But don’t bet on it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

If you want to help somebody lose weight, what do you do? Give them a big box of chocolates and order them to reduce their calorie intake?

No? Well, it doesn’t make sense to me either, but it makes sense to the government. You see, first the Congress keeps giving everybody more candy. Then somebody like Mitchell E. Daniels, director of the Office of Management and Budget says, “Hey, I want you to come up with a diet plan.” Daniels is asking federal agencies to develop a so-called “work analysis” as part of, quote, “the initial phase of implementing the president’s initiative to have agencies restructure their workforces to streamline organizations.”

Whatever. I mean, it’s a good idea. But the hard part is not finding places to cut fat. The people who work in these agencies know where the fat is. But they like that fat. They enjoy that fat. It’s candy. In fact, if the fiscal year is coming to a close and an agency hasn’t yet spent all the candy in the budget, the bureaucrats will work overtime to spend it all before it’s “too late.”

For private companies, there is a benefit to cutting costs. They earn more profit that way. For government agencies, by contrast, there is a benefit to spending more and ever more, because they don’t have to foot the bill.

It is wrong. But what’s the answer? Sure, go ahead and ask agencies to come up with a 5-year diet plan. Then, in addition, put them on a diet. Give them less candy. No matter how they scream.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

I believe in term limits. Term limits increase electoral competition and curb entrenched political power.

To some people, though, this means I must also be opposed to the political process itself. It’s like saying that if you oppose the disease that’s infecting a human body, you must also oppose the human body. That’s just silly.

I’m against political corruption, but I’m not against politics. I’m against political monopolies, but I am not against politicians. I’m against sacrificing the general good to the demands of special interests, but I’m not against special interests. I’m not even against lobbyists.

Let me be clear. These days, lobbying too often means trying to grab more and ever more from the public kitty at the expense of one’s fellow citizens. That’s wrong. But that’s not the only form lobbying takes. Not by a long shot.

There are lobbyists on all sides of every political issue. We have environmentalists versus foresters, neighborhoods versus zoning boards, those who would increase our taxes and those who would cut them. Usually one side has a better argument than the other. But all sides lobby to make their case. And as a matter of fact, we’re all lobbyists, just as soon as we write to the paper or to our congressman giving our side of an issue.

Lobbying means trying to influence the political process through persuasion. Trying to persuade your representative is the most basic form. But even talking to a neighbor about the upcoming election counts as lobbying. You can’t have a vibrant democracy without an awful lot of lobbying.

We’re all lobbyists. Or we should be.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Maybe you’ve seen it on television, the story about the red Corvette. A car we’d all love to own, if only we could afford to splurge that much dough on a sports car.

Yet, some hoodlums, working allegedly for you and me in the Department of Education, ripped off enough tax dollars to buy thousands of them. The Department of Education cannot account for $450 million dollars spent over the last three years.

Where did the money go? Apparently, it just vanished for corvettes, laptops, you name it.

Congressman Charlie Norwood says, “They’ve got thousands of people in the Department of Education running around with credit cards that they absolutely can spend large amounts with and nobody’s checking it.”

Sounds like our federal government all right. Want to know what Congress is going to do about this colossal rip-off? Oh . . . nothing. They’ll bluster and bark and demand better controls, sure. The Education Department can’t say where they flushed $450 million dollars. But they are going to get even more money this year and next and the year after that. So don’t think anyone over at the Department is sweating over this.

Maybe now is a good time to question why we send good money to the Department of Education in Washington in the first place. This bureaucracy doesn’t educate a single child. It just wastes lots of our tax dollars, then slaps ridiculous mandates on the dollars that do trickle back to the states.

Doesn’t make sense from any angle unless, that is, you’ve got your heart set on donating red corvettes to the bandits in Washington.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Sometimes I gotta laugh. Really. I thought I’d heard every possible argument against term limits. But then this guy Kevin Kelley out in Michigan, managing director of the Michigan State Medical Society, publishes an article in the Detroit News that really takes the cake.

Maybe you’ve heard the claim that term limits somehow increases the power of lobbyists and staffers at the expense of legislators. Despite this alleged fact, the vast majority of lobbyists and the staffers loathe and despise term limits. It’s no mystery. A cozy relationship with just one guy that lasts decade after decade is very convenient for them.

Anyway, this guy Kelley out in Michigan has a new spin on things. According to Kelley, term limits is causing the state’s executive branch to become, and I quote: “less responsive to the people’s representatives and senators.” The reason is that they “know those individuals will be gone in six or eight years.”

Then Kelley asks: “How fast would you move on a project, issue or neighborhood effort if you knew the person whom you were working with would be gone in a finite period of time?” Gee, I guess I would move pretty fast. I mean, if I had a tight deadline like you say, Mr. Lobbyist.

Makes you wonder how the guy spends his time if he thinks you can’t complete a project with another human being unless you know the other guy will be stuck in the same place for all eternity.

Here’s my suggestion. If you’re not getting stuff done fast enough, make a to-do list or hire a helper. But leave term limits alone.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Like gum under a bus seat.

That’s how Congressman Ric Keller describes wasteful and unfair federal programs that America’s taxpayers just can’t seem to get rid of. All thanks to career politicians afraid of offending some narrow special interest or other.

Representative Keller is a freshman from Orlando, Florida who has limited his time in Congress to four terms. He says term limits give him the freedom to say “No” to the gum under the bus seat.

For example, Keller says he would get rid of corporate price supports of sugar, ethanol and peanuts that make products more expensive for consumers. He would drop the federal mandate for expensive union labor on federal projects, which adds 25 percent to the cost of building any new school that receives federal money. And he would close down the Rural Electrification Administration, started in the 1930s to bring electricity to the country and still being funded even though we’ve got electricity all over the place now. (Well, except maybe California.)

Congressman Keller says he has come to Washington to make a difference, not to pursue an endless political career. So he can afford to let special interest groups take aim at him if he does something they don’t like. He’s not going to be clinically depressed if he has to become a private citizen again.

Says Keller: “The worst thing that can happen is I lose and I go back into private practice and make double my salary and live on a big lake. I have the freedom to do what is right. And I wish we had other folks up here who were here more to do what is right and then go back home.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Mr. Ashcroft is in trouble again.

What has the controversial attorney general been doing this time? Well . . . praying and reading the Bible. Not during work hours. Not disruptively. But right in his office at the Justice Department before work starts.

Well, is he requiring other workers to pray, too? You can’t do such a thing! . . . Oh, he’s not requiring anyone else to pray?

Well, will some folks be passed over for promotion based on their religious views? Then, that’s simply not right! . . . No? You mean, he’s held religious fellowship every morning for years and several of his key longtime staffers have never once attended? Er . . . what is the problem, then?

One unidentified attorney at the Justice Department said, “He’s using public spaces to have a personally meaningful event to which I would not be welcome, nor would I feel welcome.”

A “personally meaningful event”? My goodness, didn’t we just go through this kind of thing with Clinton, but . . . it’s not like that at all.

Another bravely nameless lawyer at the Justice Department calls Ashcroft’s early morning events “offensive, disrespectful and unconstitutional.” Wait a second, isn’t Mr. Ashcroft simply practicing his religion in the pursuit of happiness? We all try to bring a little joy from our own lives into our workplaces. Stop making it a federal case.

If Mr. Ashcroft uses his position to push his religion except by personal example he’ll be out in a New York minute, and well he should be. But he’s not doing that.

This isn’t about religion; it’s about freedom.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.