Category: Common Sense

Our Constitution is a magnificent document, unrivaled in human history. It protects the individual freedom we cherish and limits the power of government.

Everyone in politics claims to be “for” the Constitution. But guess what happens when a second-term Congressman introduces a bill to require every law to explicitly state its constitutional authority. The career politicians can’t muster the votes to pass it.

But it gets worse. A group called Citizens for the Constitution made up of former congressmen, federal officials and Washington lawyers is even more unfriendly to the Constitution. These are the same folks who have been running the Congress and several presidential administrations, passing unconstitutional laws for decades. Their goal is to block constitutional amendments.

Now, most Americans are very cautious about amending the Constitution. That’s why only 27 of the thousands of proposed amendments have been adopted. But to suggest our Constitution should not be amended is to say women shouldn’t vote (the 19th Amendment) or slavery should not be outlawed (the 13th Amendment).

The Constitution was written by men not God. Part of the wisdom of the document’s drafters is their recognition of their own fallibility. That’s why they provided a process to amend it. The Constitution isn’t a dead relic to be placed on a museum shelf. It’s a living, breathing document. Let’s protect the Constitution. Sometimes that means amending it in ways powerful politicians oppose. Term limits come to mind.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Quick! Hop a plane and fly to Washington! The Congress is about to rip you off for another two cents on every packet of Kool-Aid you buy!

Think I’m crazy? I’ll have to plead no contest on that one. But what’s even crazier is the way our Congress again and again does the bidding of special interests at your expense. Perhaps saving two cents on Kool-Aid isn’t that important to you. But subsidies our Congress gives the sugar industry cost the taxpayers $1.4 billion every year. The top 100 sugar farms each rake in over $1 million in benefits.

And of course, it doesn’t stop with sugar. Many other products receive subsidies which benefit a few special interests in Washington at the expense of the average taxpayer. If you were to grow peanuts in your back yard and sell them, you could be arrested. As Rep. Mark Sanford, a leader of term-limited members of Congress, points out, “No one in my district would say that that makes sense. Such programs survive only because special interests support them, and because career politicians need the support of the special interests. The only way to solve this problem is to change a representative’s perspective something term limits do very well.”

Okay, so maybe you don’t want to hop a plane for Washington and lobby your congressman for that two cents. But what kind of person do you want to represent you in Congress? A citizen legislator committed to coming back home? Or a career politician ready to cut yet another deal with the special interests so he or she can stay in Washington forever? Your choice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Monday, May 24, 1999

With more tax dollars flowing into Washington than expected this year, we’ve got a great opportunity to get our country’s financial house in order. Yet, career politicians seem intent upon spending the increased revenue as fast as it comes in. Our Congress keeps thinking up new programs.

And it would be easy for Congress to use the war in Kosovo as just one more excuse to break the budget cap. That’s why Representatives Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Mark Sanford of South Carolina introduced an amendment to the appropriation bill funding the war in Kosovo that would require across-the-board domestic spending reductions to offset the amount spent in the war. This kind of fiscal discipline has been sorely absent from past Congresses.

Alas, the careerists in Congress still lack fiscal responsibility. The amendment was voted down better than 3 to 1. John Berthoud of the National Taxpayers Union put it this way: “The House of Representatives voted to pick the pockets of all Americans rather than exercise fiscal restraint . . . this amounts to a declaration of war on taxpayers.”

If the career congressmen can’t or won’t live within a budget when times are good, we sure can’t expect them to pull any rabbits out of their hats in tough times, now can we? Why do representatives like Coburn, Toomey and Sanford care more about fiscal responsibility than their colleagues?

Simple. Each of them has pledged to serve no more than 3 terms in the House, and not make a career in Congress. As citizens rather than politicians, they know that government money doesn’t grow on trees. It comes from you.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

We cherish the right to choose our representatives to Congress. But before we choose our representatives, they choose us as voters. Confused? Well, you should be because the redistricting process doesn’t make any sense.

The Constitution stipulates that every ten years a census must be taken to count all Americans. State legislatures then draw a map setting the boundaries for congressional districts. So far, so good.

What doesn’t make sense is the way state legislatures draw the districts. And the court decisions on redistricting make even less sense. In recent years, a number of court cases have challenged congressional districts that are drawn to create a majority of black or Hispanic voters. Courts have ruled that setting districts along racial lines violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution. North Carolina recently argued before the Supreme Court that their intent in drawing the latest map was “to help guarantee the reelection of Rep. Melvin Watt . . .”

Guarantee reelection? Huh? While the courts have ruled that state legislatures cannot gerrymander districts along racial lines, they have approved districts drawn to reelect all the incumbents. Now any two high school students with a calculator and a map could redistrict a state in a weekend. But it takes state legislatures months of political deal-making to set districts for the benefit of their political buddies in Congress.

Incumbents are virtually “guaranteed” reelection, because they get to choose the voters before the voters get to choose them. Does anybody think this is what our Founding Fathers had in mind?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Let me speak frankly about the frank.

The frank, or franking privilege, is the ability of incumbents in Congress to send out mail at taxpayers’ expense. There seems to be no end to the perks Congressmen bestow upon themselves. But what gives them one of the biggest election advantages is this franking privilege.

Many career politicians are shameless enough to pretend this free mail is simply used to respond to letters from constituents. That sounds like a reasonable and necessary expense. But the truth is that over 80 percent of our tax dollars spent on franked mail goes for unsolicited campaign-style mailings. The average incumbent spends a whopping $846,000 each year! That’s significantly more money than most challengers spend in their entire campaign.

While challengers have to raise the money from voluntary contributions, the career incumbents simply take this money from you and me the taxpayers. Sadly, this is another rip-off brought to us by politicians who put their careers ahead of your pocketbook.

But there are those who don’t abuse the franking privilege. The lowest spender in the Congress was Rep. Bob Schaffer of Colorado, who returned close to 90 percent of his postal allowance. What makes Rep. Schaffer different? He’s term-limited, having pledged to stay in Washington no more than 3 terms. Therefore, he isn’t spending his every waking hour chasing re-election. An aide said, “He feels he can be more frugal with the taxpayer’s money.”

Unlike career congressmen, citizen legislators like Colorado’s Bob Schaffer speak frankly without abusing the frank.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Politicians say it takes a new legislator a year or two just to find the bathroom. Must be a pretty uncomfortable year or two. Of course, this says more about the old-timers’ desire to protect their turf than about reality. In the real world, a new employee is expected to learn the job in a matter of days or weeks, not years.

One of the reasons change doesn’t happen in Washington is because the career politicians are in no hurry for change. Heaven knows they aren’t planning to leave anytime soon. Freshman Congressman Jim DeMint of South Carolina is a rookie coming to rescue the Congress from the outdated ways of career politicians. He’s limited himself to 3 terms and determined to hit the ground running. He said recently:

I’ve heard folks say it takes five or six years sometimes to get a bill through Congress. It reminds me of the stories of Ford and Chrysler, who thought it was impossible to introduce a new car in less than five or six years. Until they saw the Japanese doing it in less than two years, with lower prices, and higher quality. The system gets in the way. We’ve got folks to [limit their service in Congress]; not folks with political experience, but people with experience in the private sector. I’ve already seen [that] the people who have limited their terms have made a big difference in Congress, not just in legislation, but in the whole attitude.

Representative DeMint found the bathroom, but he won’t be able to work the old boy system in Congress. Instead, he’s going to change it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Is money the root of all evil? That’s what some believe and they’re convinced that getting money out of politics will save our system.

But the issue of campaign financing isn’t quite that simple. The facts don’t agree with the emotions of some reformers. And the career politicians mugging for the cameras simply ignore the facts. The main campaign finance legislation in the House, the Shays-Meehan bill, would cap spending in congressional races at $600,000.

That’s a big problem.

In the 1998 elections 311 incumbents spent under $800,000 on their campaigns. All the incumbents won. Of the 279 challengers who spent under $800,000, every single one of them lost. Incumbency is much more important than money in determining who will win an election. Still, the incumbents are trying to set rules under which experience tells us no challenger would win.

Career politicians pretend to pass campaign finance reform to clean up the system and give challengers a fair chance. But in reality, their bill is designed to protect them from competition. Money isn’t the problem. We all need money and most of us won’t let the need for money take away our honesty and integrity. The problem is power.

If we allow career politicians to regulate the election process they’ll have more power and money. And we’ll go from few choices at the polls to none.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

They say if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. But some folks don’t even try to build the mousetrap. Instead, they beat a path to Washington for special favors.

When someone builds a better product they deserve to do well financially. Their hard work and smarts make our lives better. The more lives they improve, the more they make. That’s the beauty and the fairness of the free market system.

Compare that with a system in which you get rich by convincing someone in power to subsidize your business or hobble the competition. That destroys the free market system that has made our country the richest in the world. But it gives Congress a lot more power when they can make some businesses winners and others losers. It’s how incumbent politicians raise so much money.

Avondale Industries, a Louisiana corporation, was worried that a merger of two competitors would put them at a competitive disadvantage. Every member of the Louisiana delegation to Congress urged the government to block the merger except one, Rep. John Cooksey. Dr. Cooksey took a pledge to stay in office no more than 3 terms. Not obsessed with his own career as a politician, he can concentrate on doing the right thing. “I want Avondale to be successful because they have a good product,” he said. “I don’t want them to be successful because they are being propped up by politicians.”

We need more citizen legislators who will do the right thing and protect everybody’s equal rights under the law. In politics, that’s the better mousetrap.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Are term limits just a fad? Are they the hula-hoop of the 90’s? That’s what some political pundits tell us.

Well, they should check their history books. Term limits are nearly as old as democracy itself. The ancient Greeks realized that even if elected democratically, elected officials could use their power to monopolize the office. Aristotle argued that term limits should be an essential part of any republic’s constitution. Cicero, the famous Roman statesmen, was a strong believer in term limits.

In America, term limits pre-date the constitution. And in fact, no less than the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, opposed ratifying our constitution until two problems were fixed. He wanted, first, a bill of rights, and second, rotation in office what we call term limits. Jefferson’s first concern was dealt with by The Bill of Rights, but Americans are still trying to find a way to place term limits on Congress.

Even when the law didn’t require rotation in office, American tradition has. President Washington stepped down after two terms. Until Franklin Roosevelt, other presidents followed that tradition. Now presidential term limits are part of the Constitution.

Term limits a fad? Well, it’s the law for the President, 38 governors, 18 state legislatures and thousands of local officials. Nothing against the hula-hoop, but term limits will be around a lot longer.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The Empire is striking back. The American people voted and voted for term limits.

This decade 23 states placed limits on their congressional delegations. Eighteen states (40 percent of the population) now have limits on their state legislatures. Thousands of local officials across the country have mandated rotation in office. New York, LA, Denver, Cincinnati and Washington, D.C. have all enacted limits in the 90’s.

How do the Darth Vaders of the political class react to all this? There’s a lot of heavy breathing that’s for sure. If you didn’t support term limits before you might after learning about all the dirty tricks politicians have pulled against term limits. Term limits laws have been taken to court endlessly. In California, legislators twice sued all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

But term limits prevailed.

In 1995, the Supreme Court did strike down the congressional term limits laws passed in 23 states. But citizen legislators in the Congress are fighting back by limiting their own terms. The political class has tried to thwart the voters at the local level, too. Political bosses in New York City slipped a confusing measure on the ballot to extend term limits to 12 years. Voters said no.

In city after city, politicians have used every trick in the book to try to fool voters into repealing them. Voters are sticking to their guns. Yes, the Empire is striking back. But term limits are working and coming soon to a town near you. May the force be with you.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.