Category: Common Sense

There they go again.

Career politicians in Washington are conspiring to grab another pay raise. Little do they seem to care that most of us the folks who pay the bills and the ones they’re supposed to be representing believe Congress is already overpaid, over-perked and over-pensioned.

The base salary for a member of Congress is $136,700 dollars. That puts their take home pay in the upper 2 percent of all Americans. And while they constantly say that they could make more in the private sector, rarely do they volunteer to leave their cushy jobs.

Still, the dollar figures are not really the issue. What’s more troubling is the sneaky way they try to scam us and take us for granted. It’s not a pay raise we’re told; it’s a COLA: a cost of living adjustment.

How Orwellian!

Now they’ve cooked up a new scheme. California Congressman Bill Thomas suggests they give themselves a per diem, which would mean a cool $20,000 more a year tax-free . One congressman says, “We won’t tackle a COLA or a per diem in or near an election year, so this must break now.” You see, they’re afraid we natives might get restless around election time.

Who in Congress will stand up to yet another pay grab? The Citizen Legislator Caucus, that’s who! This recently formed group puts the public first and opposes the pay raise. These representatives have term-limited themselves. They simply aren’t looking to cash in on a career. Hmmmm. Citizen legislators who put our interests first what an idea!

Maybe your congressman should join up.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

How would you like to pick a fight with someone who has a million dollars sitting in the bank to wage war against you and big connections with the federal government? Would it create any hardship if you had to quit your job?

Anyone who dares to run for Congress against an incumbent must answer these questions. It’s not just that incumbents have the money to pulverize a challenger with 30-second character assassination TV ads. It’s more.

All at the taxpayers’ expense, they mail to voters in their district, use radio and television studios in the capitol, and have a big staff working day-in, day-out, for the congressman’s reelection. Even these advantages are only the tip of the iceberg.

In 1998, 98.5 percent of incumbents were re-elected. For those in office more than two terms, the re-election rate was 100 percent. Not a single old bull was defeated. In fact, more than 1 in 5 congressmen had no opponent at all denying voters even a protest vote. Wonder why politicians don’t listen to you?

Eric O’Keefe in his new book “Who Rules America” points out: “They don’t have to. By discarding rotation in office, we have inherited a Congress free to flout the opinions of the folks back in the district. After all, what are they going to do about it: run against the frank-cranking, staff-fattened incumbent? Lotsa luck.”

Professional politicians are monopolizing our political process. In the economy, monopolies cause higher prices and lower quality. Well, they wreck havoc in politics, too. The longer folks stay in Washington, the less competition they face, and the less they listen to us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Washington is a strange place. At times, frankly, it’s a theater of the absurd.

Congressman Bill McCollum of Florida just introduced a constitutional amendment for term limits. Of course, as he well knows there are still far too many career politicians in Congress for the amendment to have any chance. But in putting his legislation forward Mr. McCollum pointed out that congressional careerism is one of the biggest problems our country faces.

Only in Washington!

You see while Congressman McCollum is right about the problems of careerism, he’s also been in office for 19 years and he has no intention of leaving anytime soon. He campaigns against careerism while pursuing a lifelong career in Congress.

When asked if he hasn’t fallen victim to the corrupting influences of power after two decades in office, Mr. McCollum replied, “I would say there are exceptions to every rule.”

What hypocrisy! While the real leaders of term limits have pledged to limit themselves to be citizen legislators right here and now to lead by example, Mr. McCollum smugly preaches a creed he refuses to live by. If you believe in term limits, then they should apply to you. Andrew Carnegie once remarked, “As I grow older I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”

No amendment has a snowball’s chance while career politicians control Congress. We must change Congress by sending a different kind of representative to Washington, one pledged to come back home. Mr. McCollum would do well to remember that George Washington established the two-term limit on the President by boldly stepping down himself not by sending out a press release.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Social Security is called the third rail of politics because when a program sends checks to millions, a congressman who talks about changing it puts himself at risk of being politically electrocuted. If you want a career in Washington, who needs risk?

Thankfully, some view Congress differently. They aren’t trying to cash in on a career. Forty-five Representatives have limited themselves to three House terms. These are the kind of legislators America’s founders hoped would go to Congress folks not afraid to tackle the tough issues.

Mark Sanford of South Carolina is one of these term-limited members and he’s willing to act to save Social Security. He’s introduced legislation to allow you to take back your Social Security account from the politicians. His bill would allow you to invest a portion to grow a real retirement benefit.

Political opponents raise concerns about the risk of allowing you to invest your own money. Yet, the bigger concern is what Mark Sanford calls the “political risk” of leaving your money in the hands of the politicians in Congress.

What is the political risk? Politicians chasing votes have spent every dollar you’ve paid to Social Security. The money’s gone. There is no “trust fund” because Congress couldn’t be trusted. If a private pension fund was run this way, the people would be arrested. Managing your Social Security, Congress spent all the money and the program is headed for bankruptcy.

But why should Congress care? They’ve opted out of Social Security and their congressional pension makes them millionaires. It’s only term-limited members like Mark Sanford who are willing to touch the third rail so that you won’t get railroaded.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The IRS estimates that the average taxpayer who itemizes will spend 22 hours this year completing tax returns. That’s 3 hours more work than last year. The increase is due to the 1,260 changes Congress pushed into the tax code in the past two years.

Mention the IRS and most congressmen will boast about the show hearings they held, finally, on Gestapo-like abuses by IRS agents. These hearings were great for TV sound-bites, but what about the pain and suffering we all go through with these confusing tax forms. Especially when the rules keep changing every year.

Now I’m not one to defend the IRS, but they just enforce the tax code, they don’t write it. Congress does that. Remember anyone for Congress ever campaigning on a platform of making the tax code even longer and more complicated? No, candidate after candidate calls for a simpler tax code, but Congress still votes for a more complex one. What’s going on here?

Simple, big tax loopholes are easier to hide in a complex code. Mention changing the tax code and all the lobbyists in Washington open up their fat checkbooks to make campaign contributions. That’s why the tax code is the best fundraising device Congress ever designed. No wonder Congress passed 1,260 changes costing you 3 more hours of precious sleep.

Most congressmen don’t start out putting their career and re-election fundraising ahead of the public interest, but the longer they’re in Washington, well . . . When you and I are up half the night filling out our taxes, let’s remember it’s the career politicians in Congress who need to wake up and smell the coffee.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

He was the most powerful political leader in our history. He could have been elected again and again as president of the United States. Some historians believe he was so popular that he could have declared himself King.

But George Washington didn’t want himself or anyone else to be king. After his second term, George Washington stepped down making it clear that no one should monopolize a seat of public power. He faithfully gave back to the people the enormous power they entrusted to him.

Thus, Washington established the tradition of a two-term limit on the president that continued for 142 years until broken by Franklin Roosevelt. Once the tradition was broken, Congress moved quickly to make it the law of the land through the 22nd Amendment. The states ratified the amendment within a year. We just celebrated not only Washington’s birthday but also the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, his legacy of presidential term limits.

When the Amendment was passed, Harry Truman was president. True to Truman’s “the buck stops here” philosophy, he stepped down after two terms, even though the amendment exempted him. Truman told us, “In my opinion eight years as president is enough and sometimes too much for any man to serve in that capacity.” And he added, “There is a lure in power. It can get into a man’s blood just as gambling or lust for money have been known to do.”

Washington and Truman understood the corrupting nature of power, and they had the character to hand back that power. Great men lead by example; an example today’s leaders would do well to follow.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.