ThisIsCommonSense.org

What if you could spend money you have no legal right to spend? Maybe even billions and billions of dollars? What if you knew you wouldn’t get caught? Would you do it?

I guess it depends on what kind of person you are.

One kind of person would spend all those billions without any thought about right and wrong. A better person would say, “Hey, this isn’t right! I don’t care if I get caught or not, this ain’t right, by golly!”

Well, we’ve had this situation in Congress for years, except now the bad guys are getting caught. Congress has to authorize a spending program. When the authorization lapses, they have to authorize it again to keep it going.

Except way too often they don’t bother, because they know they can’t get the votes. If career politicians don’t have the guts to cast the “Yes” vote to keep a program going, the funding for it should stop too, so we can all save some money.

But that isn’t what’s been happening.

Freshman Congressman Tom Tancredo has discovered 247 programs costing a total of $120 billion bucks that have not been authorized by Congress this year. Tancredo recently succeeded in passing an amendment requiring greater disclosure of unauthorized spending, ripping the cloak of secrecy from this dishonest practice. He’s been working with the Citizen Legislators Caucus, made up of other members with self-​imposed term limits.

They’re willing to fight the establishment to do what’s right. Just like you and I would.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Sometimes the outfit I work for, U.S. Term Limits, takes a little heat when we criticize a politician for breaking a term limits pledge. If we say Republican Congressman George Nethercutt should keep his word and step down from office, some Republicans are annoyed. If we say Democrat Congressman Marty Meehan should keep his word and step down, some Democrats are annoyed.

Well, we believe integrity is a nonpartisan virtue.

The term limit pledge is a solemn promise to give up power after a short time in office. It’s not a promise about when you’re gonna meet somebody for lunch. It says you will serve as a citizen legislator who puts principles and people first. Congressmen Matt Salmon and Mark Sanford understand. They’re keeping their promises and stepping down this year. Says Salmon: “The longer people stay, the more indistinguishable the parties are.”

Rep. Sanford adds, “We get so hung up on the party thing we miss the bigger picture.” We all have our own political views, and many of us are aligned with a party. But truth must come before party. That’s what makes us Americans first. And if truth is on our side, we have nothing to fear from term limits.

New people endeavoring to be citizen legislators will find the right course in policy decisions more often than those who place their party first. Keeping your word is a lot more essential to a free society than being a Republican or Democrat or a career politician.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Americans want term limits for members of Congress. It takes an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But most Americans are unaware of an important case headed to the Supreme Court that could move things in that direction.

It concerns a Missouri term limits initiative passed in 1996. Missourians passed an amendment to their state constitution. It followed the age-​old practice of instructing elected officials. In this case, the amendment instructed congressional representatives from Missouri to use every effort to pass a term limits amendment to the U.S. Constitution. These instructions were not binding. Voters cannot force their representatives to vote a certain way.

But in our country’s early days, when elected officials could not in good conscience abide by the instructions of the voters, they almost always resigned from office. In those days, there was such a thing as honor. Not so much today. So the Missouri initiative went one step further. It provided that the voters would be informed on the ballot if congressional candidates refused to abide by the voters’ wishes.

Critics have decried the ballot notation as, in effect, telling the voters that a candidate is “unworthy to hold public office,” resulting in “potential political deaths” of those politicians who oppose term limits. And geez, we don’t want that. The Supreme Court must decide: Do voters have a right to instruct their representatives and to be informed on whether those instructions are followed? A favorable court decision would be a big step in the right direction.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Where were you in 1956? I wasn’t even born. But Strom Thurmond of South Carolina was sitting in the exact same place he sits today: the United States Senate.

He has held office in the U.S. Senate longer than anyone in history: 44 years, and counting. The guy is 97 years old. He’s a fixture in South Carolina politics, but is he still able to do the job for the people?

Well, there are signs the answer is no.

He had to step down as chairman of the Armed Services Committee because he just physically could not keep up with the demands of the position. But who cares, right? He’s got seniority. He has also missed half the meetings of the committees on which he still sits, mostly it appears due to poor health. At least, that’s better than the state’s junior Senator Fritz Hollings, who after serving 34 years has missed 70 percent of the meetings of the Appropriations, Budget and Commerce panels since his last election.

As an incumbent with universal name recognition, Thurmond easily won re-​election in 1996. Still, most South Carolinians think it’s time he retired.

Not that they would want to end his career by defeating him — in effect, firing him. Voters don’t like to do that. Great men leave on their own, but today’s politicians need term limits.

Senator Thurmond should step down and give someone else a chance to serve in the Senate. Let’s just say it’s time.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Thomas Jefferson once said that given a choice between a free government and a free press he would not hesitate to choose the latter. His point was that a free government would quickly degenerate into tyranny were it not for a free press to act as the watchdog for the people. Jefferson understood the political pressure that could be brought to bear on the press.

Now 200 years later the word I would use to describe the state of our press, or media, in this information age is frightening. It was revealed in a recent court case that the publisher of the San Francisco Examiner offered to give favorable coverage to Mayor Willie Brown during his reelection campaign in exchange for political help in selling his newspaper. A deal to slant the news. I guess you really can’t believe everything you read. And this is not an isolated case.

A recent article in Reason magazine says that Al Gore threatened reporters with an end to access at the White House if they reported some less than flattering family problems. The reporters backed down. Whether it’s proper to highlight the difficulties of a politician’s family is a fair question. But they shouldn’t make the call based on threats.

And then there’s the new Clinton administration policy of offering financial rewards to the television networks to influence the content of the shows we watch. Shades of Big Brother. Our journalists are supposed to work for us, and so are the politicians. Houston, we’ve got a problem …

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.