Republican Congressman Tom Marino recently introduced two
bills to reform Washington.
The first bill, H.R. 2113, the One
Subject at a Time Act, would require that bills embrace only one subject,
that the subject be clearly displayed in the bill title, and prohibit
appropriations bills from including hidden general legislation. If a bill like this were in place, Obamacare
would have been impossible.
The second bill, H.J. Res 48,
amends the U.S. Constitution to prohibit U.S. Senators from serving more than
two consecutive terms (12 Years) and prohibits members of the U.S. House of
Representatives from serving more than six consecutive terms (12 years.)
Term limits are an interesting subject. When the founders designed our Constitution,
U.S. Senators were not elected by the general public. Instead, they were elected by the state legislatures as expressed in Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution. The 17th Amendment to the
Constitution changed that, making them directly elected by the people.
Members of Congress have always been directly elected by the
public. The real difference is in the
expectations of service. As a member of
the House, it was understood that you were there for service to the people. The founders designed it so that average,
every day people would give up some of their time to serve in Congress and then
return to their regular business.
In short, congress wasn't supposed to be a career.
Marino’s One Subject at a Time Act deserves passage. This bill is a common sense bill that will improve
government transparency.
Politicians becoming entrenched is a problem at every level
of government and Marino’s amendment might get help fix that. But, it won’t truly deal with the problem.
Deviation from the Constitution and the spirit of original
intent is what caused the problems in Washington that Marino is trying to
address. Rather than limiting the terms
of politicians, a better bill would merely adjust the salary a politician may
receive to the median household income in the U.S. during the year in which
they were elected. This would do three
things: first, it would right-size the salary of Senators and Representatives
to better reflect the annual income of their constituents; second, it would
make it difficult for members of Congress to make a career out of being a
member of Congress because the money just wouldn't be there to do it; and
third, it would force representatives to focus on bettering the economic
prosperity of this country.