More young persons voting might be a better and more democratic solution than age limits. And young people could just do this instead of sitting on the internet yelling, "Get out of government", to the oldsters.
Also dark money has to go. If someone is going to buy government, the people ought to know who it is.
The problems we have with the system aren't necessarily age related. We need term limits. Feinstein is a good example, although some politicians are worse.
Feinstein died with a net worth of about $97 million. All the long-term politicians are multi-millionaires. They got that way with insider trading and doing favors for companies. Remember Hillary Clinton turning $1,000 into nearly $100,000 by trading cattle futures! But corruption is only part of the problem.
Feinstein hadn't held a private sector job in 50 years! How out of touch with the common person would you be if you hadn't worked in a real job for 50 years! Some politicians have NEVER held a real job, had to worry about making payroll this week, getting fired on the next round of layoffs, getting fired because you didn't show up on time.
We need the following:
1. Term limits.
2. A pooled blind trust for all assets of US Congresspersons and Senators to prevent insider trading. They put their money in when they assume office. They get to draw it out when they leave office. They have no control over the investment decisions of the blind trust. That goes for spouses as well.
3. A forever ban on serving in ANY lobbyist capacity.
I thought this was a running website. What does this discussion have to do with distance running . There are plenty of political sites to have this discussion .
But voters should not vote for dinosaurs if they don't want them to serve. The whole problem lies with the voters - that is, with the American public at large.
I thought this was a running website. What does this discussion have to do with distance running . There are plenty of political sites to have this discussion .
While term and age limits are worth discussing and implementing, the idea that their brains are damaged because they are old is rich. It is pretty obvious that many of the registered (or non as well) on this site have damaged brains - regardless of their political leaning. Just the fact that some post literally hundreds of times a day (Armstronglivs, etc.) says that they are not "all there".
2. A pooled blind trust for all assets of US Congresspersons and Senators to prevent insider trading. They put their money in when they assume office. They get to draw it out when they leave office. They have no control over the investment decisions of the blind trust. That goes for spouses as well.
3. A forever ban on serving in ANY lobbyist capacity.
What about children? Son-in-law? Nephew? Close family friends? How far in the extended family does it go?
Why the ban on lobbyist capacity? That makes no sense. It’s also incredibly difficult to enforce without any loopholes. Why shouldn’t congresspeople be able to make money off their contacts and experience after retiring from congress, especially also with term limits like you want?
You want to block all ways of making decent money for them. That’s never going to work. Never has in any country in the history of the world. Power is wealth and vice versa.
Sen Feinstein had dementia, her staff voted for her and she was completely unfit to serve for the last 3-4 years.
We need term limits and age limits for both houses of Congress.
I propose the following:
Age limit: 70 (POTUS, Senate & House)
For the Senate: 2 terms which is 12 years
For the House: 4 terms which is 8 years
There are too many in Congress who are older than 70 right now. They all need to go.
Trump is too old
Biden is too old
Grassley is too old, too many terms
Bernie is too old, too many terms
McConnell is too old, too many terms
Discus
Not arguing that those folks are not too old.
But voters should not vote for dinosaurs if they don't want them to serve. The whole problem lies with the voters - that is, with the American public at large.
The voters don't write-in the candidates. The parties select who ends up on the ballot and you get two choices. That's the biggest flaw in our system; ballot access.
The age issue is closely tied to the advantages of incumbency and political polarization, where safe seats (has nothing to do with the Senate, except in a state that is polarized as a whole, like California or Texas) mean that the only action is in the primary and incumbents often run unopposed in primaries or their challengers have limited access to money. As the rates of being defeated plummet, the incumbents virtually take on a lifetime job. Your Mitch McConnells and Dianne Feinsteins of the world will not leave in life. A Constitutional Amendment radically reforming campaign financing would help to solve this and many other problems.
Banning future lobbying is an absolutely key reform. Term limits would remove most of the effective members of Congress. Age limits would probably be regarded as unconstitutional.
You have got to have effective, enforceable anti-corruption measures to keep our democracy going.
The problems we have with the system aren't necessarily age related. We need term limits. Feinstein is a good example, although some politicians are worse.
Feinstein died with a net worth of about $97 million. All the long-term politicians are multi-millionaires. They got that way with insider trading and doing favors for companies. Remember Hillary Clinton turning $1,000 into nearly $100,000 by trading cattle futures! But corruption is only part of the problem.
Feinstein hadn't held a private sector job in 50 years! How out of touch with the common person would you be if you hadn't worked in a real job for 50 years! Some politicians have NEVER held a real job, had to worry about making payroll this week, getting fired on the next round of layoffs, getting fired because you didn't show up on time.
We need the following:
1. Term limits.
2. A pooled blind trust for all assets of US Congresspersons and Senators to prevent insider trading. They put their money in when they assume office. They get to draw it out when they leave office. They have no control over the investment decisions of the blind trust. That goes for spouses as well.
3. A forever ban on serving in ANY lobbyist capacity.
I dunno about Supreme Court being by far the least corrupt. I mean Repubs in the House and Senate are extremely corrupt, but the conservatives on the Supreme Court are also pretty corrupt. They are currently going through a major ongoing corruption scandal. Really the only thing we can say for sure is that wherever you find Republicans in government you will find massive corruption. Though that's not an age/term issue cuz with the self-radicalizing of the Republicans party and conservative america and their total break with reality the past 30 years any new repubs that replace old repubs are going to be on average more corrupt than the old already very corrupt repubs.
There’s plenty of corruption to go around, and it’s not only republicans. All the way from Rod Blagoyevich to Bob Menendez. It’s not limited to one party. It is telling that the GOP hasn’t said much about Menendez, though. Pretty pathetic all around.