Tag: Congress

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ballot access ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies political challengers

The Stupidity of 15

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Most Americans think there are only two choices for the presidency. And will thus vote for either Clinton or Trump.

They are wrong. There are two popular minor party contenders, and one will even be on all 50 state ballots.

In other election cycles, one could argue that a “third party” candidate has no reasonable chance to win — so, just ignore.

A self-fulfilling criterion?

Sure. But it works . . . for the major parties.

This cycle, however, it just doesn’t apply. A third party-candidate could indeed become the next president . . . even without capturing 15 percent nationally in the polls . . . or, get this, in the actual voting!

Confused?

Founded and run by Republican and Democrat bigwigs, the private non-profit Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) is not an honest broker. The CPD’s 15 percent national polling threshold for inclusion in the debates neglects a crucial fact: presidential electors aren’t won nationally, but by winning states.

According to the latest Washington Post/SurveyMonkey poll, the Libertarian candidate, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, isn’t polling quite 15 percent nationally. But he is polling 25 percent in his home state, where Trump is at 29 and Clinton at 37 percent.

Yes, Johnson is within striking distance to win New Mexico’s five electoral votes.

If Johnson does win there, and Trump keeps it close, winning say Ohio and Florida, no candidate may gain a majority of the Electoral College. The presidential contest would be thrown into the House of Representatives, the first time since 1824! With each state delegation casting one vote, Johnson could serve as the compromise, even consensus, choice.

It seems to me that the next president ought to be in the debates.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability government transparency national politics & policies responsibility too much government

One at a Time

Mia Love, Rand Paul, congress, bills

A new procedural reform is in the offing.

And just because it is “procedural” doesn’t mean it’s insignificant.

Or boring.

Remember, how something gets done determines, in part, what gets done. The checks and balances that were written into our Constitution are there to regulate the how of government, the better to limit the what.

But it’s obvious our federal government is out of control, and in need of some additional . . . controls.

Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Mia Love have introduced just such legislation. It’s not a constitutional limitation, but a legislative change of procedure. The title of their bills pretty much explains the idea: the “One Subject at a Time Act,” initialized as OSTA.

I first heard rumblings about it from Rand Paul; then, just last week, Mia Love sent out her press release, ballyhooing the House version of OSTA, H.R. 4335.

Rand’s Senate version is S. 1572, and was introduced a little over a year ago.

The idea is not new. I’ve talked about it before. You probably have, too. Anyone with sense realizes that the congressional habit of adding unimportant, controversial programs to unrelated but necessary, uncontroversial bills, is a leading cause of government growth.

And one reason why Congress is so roundly detested.

OSTA, by forcing Congress to deal with subjects one bill at a time, might even save Congress from itself.

The bill is still looking for sponsors. You can help by putting your representative’s and senators’ feet to the fire.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies The Draft U.S. Constitution

Equal or Free?

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On Tuesday, the Senate voted to force American women, in their early years, to register for the draft.

Just like men have been required to do since 1980.

The White House threatens to veto the bill, though perhaps on other grounds, since the bill also, in the words of Richard Lardner (AP), “authorizes $602 billion in military spending, bars shuttering the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and denies the Pentagon’s bid to start a new round of military base closings.”

The Senate’s social conservative ranks made the whole process leading up to the vote difficult for the mainliners, like Sen. John “Maverick” McCain, who is enthusiastic about registering women. Sen. Ted Cruz expressed alarm at the direction “sexual equality” is taking, and didn’t want to see “girls drafted onto the front lines.”

Decades ago, the Supreme Court had nixed a challenge to draft registration on discrimination lines, reasoning that since women weren’t allowed onto the front lines, there was no cause to force them to register for military conscription.

But now there are women in combat positions. So the old ruling no longer applies. If draft registration isn’t expanded to women, it’s likely to be struck down for men.

We have no draft, we are reminded, mere registration — which our government keeps in place mainly to remind men that they may be drafted.

In the House version of the bill, there’s no draft registration amendment. So there will be negotiations. Maybe a compromise can be reached where neither young men nor women face a military draft* or, likewise, signing up for one.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* For more on why to oppose the draft, see my essay “The Draft Is Slavery” in J. Neil Schulman, The Rainbow Cadenza, pulpless.com edition (1999).

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Accountability folly general freedom moral hazard U.S. Constitution

Not Drafting Our Daughters?

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Sometimes politicians have trouble making up their minds. During election years — with the looming prospect of voters having a say — their decision-making process becomes even more perilous.

Take the idea of forcing young women to register for the draft. Young men must, under threat of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and the loss of government benefits — all the way down to denying a driver’s license to non-registrants in many states. So why not force women to sign up for forced military service?

For equality!

Just days ago, it seemed nearly everyone was for conscripting our daughters — or, at least, registering them for future conscription. Obama’s Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and military leaders enthusiastically endorsed the idea. So did Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

In recent weeks, legislation beginning mandatory draft registration of women, ages 18-26, passed both the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee. Then, all the sudden — poof! — that provision was ripped out of the House bill.

“This is a dead-of-night attempt to take an important issue off the table,” complained the ranking Democrat on House Armed Services, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington.

Timing is everything, in comedy and politics. Congressional leaders don’t want to take any pro-draft action now, not with an election just six short months away.

“We have a choice to make,” Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) argues, “either we continue with Selective Service and have women be a part of it, or we abolish it altogether.” Coffman advocates the latter, having introduced a bipartisan bill with Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), H.R. 4523, to end draft registration and close the superfluous agency.

That’s Common Sense, especially in an election year. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption responsibility

Four Powers on the Chopping Block

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A group of Ohio citizens isn’t leaving the maintenance of ethical standards in government to the politicians. Smart. Forming a political committee, “Ethics First — You Decide Ohio,” the group filed an initiative to amend the state constitution unsurprisingly called, “Ethics First.”

What does the ballot measure do?

“Ethics proposal would cut state lawmaker’s pay and power,” said the segment on Cleveland’s NBC affiliate, WKYC-TV 3.

The initiative limits base pay for the state’s part-time legislators to the median household income of full-time Ohioans. Because Ohio is one of only six states in which legislators pay themselves more than median household income, the measure, if in effect today, would mandate cutting legislators’ base pay from $60,584 annually to $49,644.

“The purpose is not to cut their pay,” explained spokesman Jack Boyle. “The purpose is to make their pay related to what happens to all of us in Ohio. If we’re doing well, their pay will go up. If not, it will go down.”

What legislative “power” will be cut?

The amendment takes away four powers:

  1. The power of legislators to exempt themselves from laws and taxes other Ohioans must follow and pay,
  2. The currently unlimited power of legislators to raise their own pay,
  3. The power to be a paid lobbyist before the legislature within two years of leaving office as a state legislator, and
  4. The power of legislators to destroy legislative records, including electronic records, within four years.

All the other powers of the legislature remain completely intact.

How would you vote: Yes or No?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability government transparency national politics & policies responsibility

That Bright, Shining, Responsible Congress

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The latest Gallup public approval rating for our so-called “representatives” on Capitol Hill stands at 11 percent — two whole percentage points higher than 2013’s worst-ever 9 percent measure.

But what if Congress changed? What if our representatives did something dramatic? You know, to show Americans that they get it, that they’ll start representing us, that they’re about doing the job and not just riding the gravy train of power, high pay, lavish pensions, special exemption from Obamacare, etc.?

No, I don’t envision a majority of the 535 House and Senate members jumping into a phone booth and coming out with Super Solon capes. My fantasy actually has its roots in reality.

Neither Obama nor congressional Democrats dare stop Republicans in Congress from passing The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2016, introduced by Rep. Rod Blum (R-Iowa). The legislation presents a straightforward incentive: do your job, balance the budget or . . . your pay will be cut.

Okay, disincentive.

Until the deficit is closed, and budget balanced, Blum’s law would reduce each congressman’s salary by 5 percent the first year, then 10 percent each year thereafter. Once Congress balances the budget, their full pay will be restored.

“For the sake of our children and grandchildren who will be stuck paying off our $19 trillion debt,” Rep. Blum argues, “it’s time we make our politicians face the reality of our fiscal crisis by hitting them where it counts: their own pocketbook.”

If the Republican-controlled Congress passed The Fiscal Responsibility Act, cutting their own pay until they get our country’s finances in order, the elections this November would be a rout.

Just a dream?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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If you enjoyed this article, please consider showing your appreciation by dropping something in our tip jar  (this link will take you to the Citizens in Charge donation page… and your contribution will go to the support of the Common Sense website). Maintaining this site takes time and money. Your help in spreading the message of common sense and liberty is very much appreciated!

 

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crime and punishment general freedom ideological culture individual achievement judiciary media and media people national politics & policies obituary

Life After Scalia

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President Reagan appointed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to the nation’s highest court in 1986. Scalia served for 29 years before passing away over the weekend at age 79. May he rest in peace.

None of the rest of us will get any.

Why? An often conservative 5-4 majority is gone. The court is now tied, deadlocked, at 4-4.

“With the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia, President Barack Obama will make another nomination to the Supreme Court,” explained an email from the very liberal Democracy for America (I’m on a lot of lists). “It is critically important that President Obama choose a strongly progressive person who can lead the Supreme Court and our country in a new direction.”

That’s Obama’s prerogative, of course. But the president’s nominee must be approved by the United States Senate — controlled 54 to 46 by Republicans.

And guess what?

Almost as fast, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell issued this statement: “The American people‎ should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President.”

Now, our Democratic president could negotiate with the Republican Senate majority, come up with a consensus (yeah, right) or compromise choice (watch out).

But don’t hold your breath.

You may also want to plug your ears. There will be shouting. The media will overwhelmingly take Obama’s side — surprise, surprise— and berate Republicans for obstructing.

Republican Senators have a constitutional duty to provide advice and consent to the president’s pick. Unless Mr. Obama’s choice will improve the High Court, those senators should withhold their consent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies

A Broken Fix

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It is universally acknowledged that Congress is all screwed up, but ideas differ on how to reform it.

Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), in accepting the Speaker of the House position, admitted, “The House is broken. We are not solving problems. We are adding to them.”

But how to fix what is broken?

In my opinion — and according to virtually every survey of Americans for the last 20 years — term limits would be the best first step.

Speaker Ryan, sadly, is no term limits fan. But at least he calls for “opening the process up” and a “new spirit of transparency.” Ryan promises “not [to] duck tough issues,” while seeking “concrete results.”

Chris Cillizza, writing “The Fix” blog for The Washington Post, predicts Ryan will “probably not” succeed.

Cillizza cites four big problems, the last two are obvious, though undefined: “3. Polarization in the country” that results in “4. Polarization in Congress.”

His No. 1 reason for the dysfunction in the House? The ban on earmarks. “Without a carrot to offer wavering members on contentious legislation,” Cillizza complains, “leadership had to rely almost exclusively on relationships and goodwill.”

Forget persuasion on the merits; apparently, congressional leadership should bribe members for their votes.

Next, Cillizza bemoans the “rise of outside conservative groups” able to speak against incumbents they oppose and for those they support. This means “the party leadership could no longer choke off campaign funds to those who refused to fall in line.”

“Falling in line” isn’t the right reform goal.

Meet another member of the Washington press corps with a strange hankering for boss rule.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability Common Sense term limits

Coming to Terms with A Logical Fallacy

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Good people can disagree about term limits.

It’s not a moral issue, but about practical governance.

I love term limits, while my friend Lew Rockwell, the former Ron Paul aide who started the Mises Institute and runs the popular website LewRockwell.com, isn’t a fan.

In a brief post to his site, entitled “The Term Limit Hoax,” Rockwell lamented that “Term limits apply only to the institutionally weakest branch of government, the legislature, to further weaken it, and never to the presidential bureaucracy, which actually runs the government, nor to the judges. It’s why neocons, those ultimate presidential supremacists, love term limits.”

This is the classic logical fallacy of guilt by association. Neoconservatives breathe air, too. Should the rest of us turn blue?

Usually if politicians — neocon or otherwise — claim amorous feelings for limits, as the late Bob Novak warned, “They’re lying.” Yet, most regular folks — all races, genders, political parties, levels of neocon-ness, you-name-it — actually do want term limits.

Lew’s correct: Congress is weak. It was designed to be the strongest branch, holding the all-important purse strings and a law-making monopoly. Yet, career politicians have shrunk from fulfilling the First Branch’s constitutional role, consistently handing more and more power to the executive branch and the courts.

That’s not the result of term limits, but a lack thereof.

Why is there “never” a push for term limits on the “presidential bureaucracy”? Well, those bureaucrats don’t even have terms as such. And any limits would have to be legislated by Congress. Congress enacted that bureaucracy, every cubicle of it, and the longer congressmen stay in Washington, the more they champion it.

Limit judges? A term-limited Congress might help there, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability national politics & policies

Stupid Before Congress

MIT economist Jonathan Gruber has had a big influence on American life, much of it “behind the scenes.” He helped put together RomneyCare in Massachusetts, then Obamacare at the federal level. And he made a curious case for abortion that was picked up by Steven Levitt and made famous in Freakonomics.

But he wasn’t summoned before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee, yesterday, to talk about abortion. His boastings, in public, that the Affordable Care Act had been designed to deceive caught congressional attention.

And referring to voters as “stupid” doesn’t sit well with politicians — maybe because they’re living evidence.

Gruber started with some newfound humility. He had been bragging. In truth, he wasn’t that important to the process.

None of this was very convincing.

His explanations for his too-honest statements? Less than satisfactory: he chalked it all up to a spoken “typo.”

More entertainingly, when repeatedly asked whether he would give the committee his work product relating to his Health and Human Services contracts, he reiterated one simple answer: the committee should “take it up with my council.”

“You’ve been paid by the American taxpayer,” stated Rep. Jason Chaffetz, with escalating frustration. “Will you or will you not provide that information to this committee?”

But what was the Utah representative expecting?

Full disclosure?

Transparency?

Responsibility?

A straight answer?

Yeah, yeah, I know . . . talk to Gruber’s lawyer.

Even with the stonewalling, I think we’ve already seen enough of Mr. Gruber’s “work product.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.