Category: Common Sense

I’d like to thank the Washington Post for making the case for term limits for me. Thank you Washington Post.

In a recent editorial, the Post talks about yet another railroad bailout that’s in the works in Congress, this one handing out extra goodies to retiring workers, decreasing contributions while increasing benefits. Sponsored by Mr. Entrenched Pork Barreling Career Politician himself, Bud Schuster, the bill among other bad things would allow government planners to invest some $15 billion in the stock market. Instead of putting the retirement system on a stable footing, the bureaucrats are gambling with workers’ savings and our tax dollars. But that’s only part of the problem.

The Post notes that the railroad retirement system has been in the red forever, despite endless subsidies. As the Post says, “You can add the railroads to the list of petitioners . . . for whom the [congressmen] are vying to shovel billions of dollars out the door even as they head home to campaign as economizers.” Good point, Washington Post . Maybe now you can admit that it’s the true-blue citizen legislators like Tom Coburn and Mark Sanford the congressmen who limit their own terms and step down after a short time in power who tend to oppose runaway wasteful spending and look out more for the common good than their own personal political good. Yes, let us know once you realize that to put an end to the antics of career politicians, we need a retirement plan for career politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Ted Kennedy is probably the perfect incumbent politician. Never mind the scandals, the personal problems, the body in the water, the high unfavorable rating. Kennedy survives by doling out tax dollars to special interest groups who in turn dole out big dollars to Kennedy’s campaign coffers. It helps to have the Kennedy name, of course, and to be the patriarch of America’s only almost-royal family. But what’s good for friends of monarchy is bad for friends of democracy.

Even in 1994, when scandal lured a challenger with deep pockets of his own, Kennedy won handily with 58 percent of the vote. Of course, Massachusetts is a Democratic stronghold. But ask yourself: why this particular Democrat, all the time, decade after decade, no matter his flaws? This year, Kennedy has no competition to speak of. Credible challengers are scared off by the sheer weight of incumbency. Kennedy has raised $5.8 million for his reelection campaign, spent $2.7 million, and has more than $4 million in the bank (some of that left over from previous campaigning). His three opponents haven’t got half a million between them.

The story is not unique. In Massachusetts alone, 5 out of 10 House incumbents face no significant opposition. Too often, the major parties just don’t bother to field a candidate when the incumbent decides to run again. And so the incumbents don’t run, they walk, to unchallenged victory. It’s time for term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Is it really so wonderful that the Republican leadership is trying to win elections “locally” this fall? Well, wait until you see what they mean by “locally.”

In 1994, Republicans snagged an historic majority of both houses of Congress by being national, not local. Their national theme was based on reforming the tax-and-spend culture of the federal government. Like-minded candidates signed a pledge to do so, the Contract With America. But Republicans squandered the political capital they gained in 1994. Except for a few stalwarts (including self-limited representatives like Matt Salmon, Mark Sanford, and Tom Coburn), they’ve caved on issue after issue at the first sign of trouble. They’re behaving like you guessed it career politicians.

And now the National Review reports that the GOP has a grand electoral strategy for 2000 of doling out as much pork as possible in districts where Republicans are at risk. Kate O’Beirne writes, “The House leaders can dispense enough pork and policy, with a dash of pandering, to insulate their members from political trouble. . . . After the appropriators take care of their own districts, 49 percent of what’s left over goes to the ‘vulnerable list.'” Great. And the purpose of gaining political power by handing out slab after fat slab of pork is to do what, exactly? Eliminate pork barrel spending? That’s not something you’ll ever be able to do while “Oink! Oink!” is your rallying cry.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Boy, the politicians in Washington are such kidders. Always joking around. What a hoot. So funny I forgot to laugh.

The latest rib-tickler is Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s gentle jibe about taking jobs away from Georgia voters if they don’t vote for a Republican for the U.S. Senate. While campaigning in Atlanta with Republican Senate candidate Mack Mattingly, Lott suggested in no uncertain terms that he would snatch away a lucrative military contract from an Atlanta-based company and flip it to Mississippi if Georgia voters don’t elect Mattingly to the Senate this November.

Of course, no one in the crowd seemed to know that it was a joke when Lott stated, “If Mack is not there [in the Senate], I will do everything I can to move the whole operation to Mississippi. If Mack is there, we’ll split the difference. We’ll build the fuselage and you’ll do the rest. You get my drift here?” Okay, Lott. We get it. Ha, ha, ha. Stop, you’re killing me.

Later, when a reporter asked Lott about his implied threat, he was told it was all in fun. Yeah. Well, perhaps if our career politicians didn’t make so many decisions that affect our safety and our pocketbooks with only their own political interests in mind, it would be easier to know when they’re joshing and when they’re turning the screws. Mr. Majority Leader, keep the day job. On the other hand, maybe it’s time you got out of politics as well as stand-up comedy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Washington, DC is blessed with an abundance of highly educated mouthpieces, who for the right price will eloquently defend the indefensible. But don’t try this at home.

The indefensible is Congressmen George Nethercutt’s decision to break his word to the voters to step down after three terms in office. His pledge won him his congressional seat, but now Nethercutt is willing to cast aside his integrity to hold on to power. In the recent primary, Nethercutt and his cronies splurged big-time, spending half a million dollars on a massive TV ad barrage in the last three weeks. His opponents did not have the money to air even a single TV commercial. Still, most voters cast their ballots against Nethercutt.

In the last ten years, seven of eight Washington State incumbents who got less 50 percent in the primary were defeated in November. The good news is that Nethercutt is in big trouble. The bad news is that his remaining supporters are still trying to defend the indefensible.

One recent letter to the editor called his 1994 pledge a “gimmick” and suggested we should “accept gimmicks as one price of democracy and move on.” Then there was the letter was from Randall Jones of Newman Lake, Washington. Mr. Jones writes, “I will hold my nose and vote for [Nethercutt.]” My goodness, is this really what our elections have become?! Should you vote for a guy if you can’t do so without holding your nose?

This is Common Sense. Let’s use some. I’m Paul Jacob.

It’s easy to imagine all that could be accomplished if you had the power. But it’s also easy to forget that power corrupts. That goes for you and me, too not just politicians. Once in power, our environment would change and so would the pressures we would face. And over time most likely we would change, too. Back in revolutionary days, Englishmen John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon wrote:

Men, when they first enter into [office], have often their former condition before their eyes. They remember what they themselves suffered from the abuse of power; so their first purposes are to be humble, modest and just; and probably, for some time, they continue so. But the possession of power soon alters their hearts. First they grow indifferent. Next, they lose their moderation: Afterwards, they renounce all measures with their old principles, and grow in conceit, a different species from their fellow subjects. And so, by too sudden degrees become insolent, rapacious and tyrannical. So that the only way to put them in mind of their former condition, and consequently of the condition of other people, is often to reduce then to it. A rotation, therefore, in power and [office], is necessary to a free government.

Power changes people. Not just bad people, but good people, too. That’s why we need term limits: because career politicians are no better than you and me.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Listener Horace Solliday writes: “Dear Paul, I am distressed every time you tell us of the good politicians who are fighting for term limits and then restrict their own terms while none of the career politicians have. Is that common sense? Wouldn’t it make more sense to stay there until they get term limits?”

Thanks Horace; it’s a fair question. But here’s the thing. No constitutional amendment for term limits is going to pass in a Congress dominated by career politicians. We’ve learned that the hard way. So we must change the Congress. That means real leadership, by example. Citizen legislators who walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

Experience hath shown that if our best representatives don’t term-limit themselves, as the years pass they tend to become co-opted by the system and play politics as usual. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, in his sixth and final year in Congress, still sleeps on a futon in his office and showers at the House gym, unwilling to become a native of Washington, DC. Says Sanford, “Some people tell me, ‘You know, Mark, you are a lame duck before you’ve even started.’ I respond, ‘You’re wrong. I’m a free duck, and there’s a big difference.’ . . . Term limits force you to maintain perspective. It’s an anchor.”

Sanford is right. It’s no coincidence that the best people in Congress have term-limited themselves. The challenge for our free society is to elect more representatives who will be “free ducks.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

This may shock you. Al Gore opposes school choice for kids trapped in failing schools. Instead he supports the same old throw-more-money-at-it, keep-the-bureaucrats-in-charge “solutions” that haven’t worked for decades.

But after choosing a former school choice advocate to be his running mate, Mr. Gore made a remarkable concession. Here is what he said: “If I was the parent of a child who went to an inner-city school that was failing . . . I might be for vouchers too.”

Huh? I am shocked. A career politician, who knows the right thing to do, but lets politics get in the way? Shocking. Al Gore has dug in his heels in defense of the public school monopoly and has no solution to offer parents at all. Though as a politician he opposes school choice for others, he sends his own kids to private schools. He is not alone.

A Heritage Foundation survey of Congress found that many of the same Congressmen who send their kids to private schools also oppose vouchers. A 1999 education bill would have allowed children in dangerous schools to choose another school using vouchers. Fifty-seven members who believe in school choice for their own kids, cast a no vote. Had they all voted yes, the measure would have passed.

The pattern has been repeated many times. We get political lip service on how much politicians care about education. But they don’t have the guts to fight for what they know is right if it means losing support from special interests. That’s our most serious educational failure.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Republicans poke fun at Vice President Al Gore for claiming to have invented the Internet. But political braggadocio isn’t unique to Democrats.

Representative George Nethercutt of Washington State says he must break his word to the voters to step down after three terms because he is so close to finding a cure for diabetes. He’s there in his office right now poring over a microscope. How can Nethercutt still do his congressional work while also doing the biochemistry, you ask? Well, this is Washington. And the cure here, for everything, is to throw other people’s money at it.

What Nethercutt is really looking for isn’t a cure not that he’s against one but votes. But how sad that politicians are so desperate to look good that they pretend they are wonderful for being in favor of what everyone else is in favor of, too. I’m not against a cure for diabetes…are you? Yet I hate to think that all medical research decisions will become political decisions, with everyone suffering from one disease trying to grab dollars away from everyone suffering from another disease.

And I just don’t buy that career politicians are medical wizards for handing out our money. Normal people like you and me take it for granted that folks won’t see us as ax-murdering creeps even if we don’t constantly insist we’re in favor of education, health, and sunshine. For some reason, politicians feel the need to shore themselves up here. Hmmmm. If the shoe fits. . . .

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

I received a letter recently from Edward Watkins of Ledyard, Connecticut. Mr. Watkins writes:

Connecticut Public Radio ran a report tonight that, throughout Connecticut, very few races for local offices even have contenders this year. They contributed it to two factors: (1) low pay in local government offices compared to private sector pay in a booming economy, (2) the high cost of conducting LOCAL campaigns. I would like to add my own important third factor: lack of term limits. Why should any normal person, who wants to be a productive citizen, attempt to run when incumbents have such a large advantage? Public service, it seems, is out the window!

Thanks for the letter Ed. The whole point of pay is to attract qualified candidates. That’s true in business and it’s true for any political job, too. So when some argue that the problem causing a lack of competition is low pay, we can easily test that theory. If the theory is valid, when a council seat opens up, we would have few candidates.

Yet, what we see is that there are plenty of candidates running for office when no incumbent stands in the way. That’s the reality. When incumbents hold power term after term there is little competition regardless of pay or even the relative cost of campaigns. There may indeed be places where the pay is too low, but usually the pay is too high. If we want more electoral competition, we need more open seats. We need term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.