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Journal eglamkowski's Journal: Congressional Ethics Reform 26

Journal by eglamkowski

The only "ethics reform" I want to see from our Congress is for all the unethical congress critters (that would be all 535 of them...) to immediately resign and never run for any political office ever again.

Well, it'd be a start anyways...

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Congressional Ethics Reform More

Congressional Ethics Reform

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  • The problem (as with so many things political) is that we're trying to treat the symptom, not the cause of the disease. What's the problem? Congress can throw huge amounts of money around with little to no accountability. What's the symptom? People try to get some of that money thrown their way. What's the "cure"? Let's try to catch people who try to influence where Congress throws the money. And then in another 5-10 years, we'll do it again.

    As long as Congress can do this sort of thing, there wil
    • The problem is that congress spends money on all manner of unconstitutional things. For the "general welfare". The solution is to change the wording of article I, section 8.

      Of course, you could go a step further and say the problem is a "greedy" electorate who WANT their politicians to "bring home the bacon", but they just don't want anybody else's politicians to "waste" their money on "pork projects" in other states. (It's only pork if it's being spent in another state...). But the politicians conditio
    • You were so close to the problem... But then veered off the highway into a ditch.

      The problem plainly stated is that congress throws huge sums of money (and power) around. If there were less money in the hands of congress, then influencing it becomes a non issue. Money and power needs be to drained from the federal level back to the states.

      Right now the concentration of money and power in DC is obsene. It allows folks to target a single source, instead of 50.
      • Ah yes - and here we arrive at the crux of the issue: distribution of power.

        If the federal government didn't have so much power, it basically wouldn't matter who was in congress, or who was the president. People would worry about what was going on locally instead of nationally. Then the news media might actually be forced to cover real, local, news that actually mattered. Life would be so much better.

        But of course, freedom is scary to most people. And it's even scarier to many people that OTHER people a
      • If corporate money wasn't speech, that would solve the problem of it's undue influence at not only the federal, but also the state level. Since the Supreme Court has yet to correct the mistake from 188x that created corporate personhood, it may take a Constitutional Amendment. Since it will probably also take one to enforce the 10th Amendment, I'd be inclined towards my idea first as it helps both levels.
    • Let's try to catch people who try to influence where Congress throws the money.

      How do you distinguish between self-interested "I want that money" and expert advice that is truly necessary? In a congress where a large percentage are legal or business people, how do you get agricultural or technological issues dealt with effectively and correctly without expert advice?

      • How do you distinguish between self-interested "I want that money" and expert advice that is truly necessary?

        The only expert advice any congress critter should ever take should be from the people who vote for him. No more, and no less. Money simply shouldn't enter into the conversation.

        In a congress where a large percentage are legal or business people, how do you get agricultural or technological issues dealt with effectively and correctly without expert advice?

        How about by asking the constituents
        • Or even better, voting someone into office who DOES understand these issues.
          • True enough- that would help as well.
          • Presuming for the moment, as GWB appears to, that the federal government has a role in Education, how do you propose to get a teacher elected in the current "money uber alles" election environment and "teachers largely get payed maybe an OK salary" reality?
            • The reason they can't get elected has more to do with the electorate only responding to money intensive campaigns than anything else. That is to say, rather than the voters going out to find information about available candidates, they wait for the candidates to come to them. That's not how it is supposed to be.

              The problem, ultimately, is the voters.
            • Presuming for the moment, as GWB appears to, that the federal government has a role in Education, how do you propose to get a teacher elected in the current "money uber alles" election environment and "teachers largely get payed maybe an OK salary" reality?

              Well, actually, that's the whole point of limiting the candidates to talking to their voters to begin with- to eliminate the big money from the system. If you're limited to raising funds *inside* your congressional district, then anybody who has earned
        • The only expert advice any congress critter should ever take should be from the people who vote for him.

          Which does nothing to prevent constitutents from having bacon projects steered to them. Unless you elminated the ability of the federal government to spend any money.

          • Which does nothing to prevent constitutents from having bacon projects steered to them. Unless you elminated the ability of the federal government to spend any money.

            I'm all for bacon projects being steered to constituents- I'm against bacon projects being steered to foreign corporations (and in this case- any corporation that does business outside of the congressinal district would be "foreign").

            But on the second half of your idea- I'm also for the concept of giving Congress only the power of WHAT goes
            • I'm all for bacon projects being steered to constituents- I'm against bacon projects being steered to foreign corporations

              While I agree that constituents are vastly preferable to foreign corporations or individuals, I don't agree that constituents alone is any less corrupt.

              We've got computerized tax returns now- why not ask the taxpayers to allocate the money they are sending in to the government?

              Yeah. Right. I have a hard enough time being sure my 401(k) is allocated appropriately and I don't re-allo

              • While I agree that constituents are vastly preferable to foreign corporations or individuals, I don't agree that constituents alone is any less corrupt.

                Here's why constituents alone is less corrupt- because the bacon availability is limited to the market. That is, with 535 congress critters EACH providing bacon *only* for their constituents, then on average no one congressional district is going to get more bacon than they pay in taxes, and probably significantly less (still need to fund that army!).

                Ye
                • EACH providing bacon *only* for their constituents

                  Not even remotely how business gets done in Congress. I want pork for my district/state, but I'm only one of (2-8) representatives. To get what I want I have to join coalitions with others, and then they will join coalitions with me. So the idea that I only bring home bacon for my own district is just wrong. That's my *primary* focus, but that's hardly the end of the story. It's called politics for a reason.

                  • Actually, the way things currently are, hometown pork is at best third place on the priority list- behind multinational corporate pork for campaign contributions, and lobbyists. Hometown pork being a primary focus would be a vast improvement at this stage of afairs.
      • The real answer is that they probably shouldn't be fiddling with most of those things. But more realistically, if you could stop the ability of the Congress to pass out money with zero accountability or even visibility, then there will be less incentive for the self-interested lobbyists.
    • Another way would be to make lobbying and taking bribes of any sort a capital crime- if every family in the United States had somebody executed for mixing business and government, it would be centuries before it happened again.
  • Add term limits. 2 terms as Senator or Representative with no more than 3 terms of Congressional service total, regardless of whether any of those terms were completely filled. Just a thought.
    • We don't necessarily need term limits. Perhaps just eliminating seniority based awards, like prestigious committee positions.

      Oh, and cut the salaries so they have incentive to NOT spend ALL YEAR LONG "in session", but to get out of session as quickly as possible so they can go make enough money at a real job off of which to live.

      And, to help them get their job done more quickly, we the public have to hold their feet to the fire to only do those things specifically allowed to congress in the constitution.
      • Perhaps just eliminating seniority based awards, like prestigious committee positions.

        Generally, I tend to agree with this sentiment, but I think the people who ask "so, who's going to run things and provide continuity then?" have a point too. A greenhorn is going to spend all their time learning the job. If you eliminated committee positions, you're effectively eliminating the committees, which is a bad idea. Committees were created to help divide and conquer the tasks before the congress. Sure, they'

    • I like the idea of just Representative term limits. Let the Senators be, but make the Representatives move on.

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