ThisIsCommonSense.org

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.