Comments on: Sorry, Politicians' Dance Cards Are Full
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- Thank you Bob for hitting it on the nail. We need to take our government back. Sadly, it looks as if some of the SupremeCourt can be purchased as well.
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- It's past time to bring up term limits for members of Congress.
There are many different ideas for the actual limit for
the term of service such as 7 terms for the House and 3 terms
for the Senate, etc. I would suggest a reason which would tie
into Mr Schieffer's comment. Just think of the effect on potential
legislation if you had in Congress people who were in their final
2 years or final 6 years of service and were not under any inferred
obligation to those who had provided financial assistance toward
their election. Most people run for elected office to make a
positive difference, now they would have their best opportunity.
Also who was it that initiated the admendment that limited the
term for the President, the Congress. Don't you think it would
only be fair (equal branches of government) if they did the same
for themselves? - Reply to this comment
- [It cost an average $8.5 million to win a seat in the Senate. On average, a Senate candidate had to raise $3,881 a day for every day of a six-year term.
So to raise that kind of money, candidates must promise so much to so many, that before they get to Washington, once here, they can't compromise on anything - their positions are set in stone. ]
the problem seems quite obvious ... and yet the money flows like water ... and as freely as speech. - Reply to this comment
- Thanks Bob. You summed it up perfectly.
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- The requirements of fund raising is really the failure of imagination.
Most people who enter politics today did not really do anything of importance such as Dwight Eisenhower,Harry Truman or that matter Ronald Reagan, and so these candidates have to manufacture image, and at a price. Even worse, since they did not really run on any particular issue or purpose, they have little power as well. - Reply to this comment
- I say make them all run on equal amounts of money and let them be elected on their merits.
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- I have said for years that no matter how wonderful our representatives are when they first go to Washington it doesn't take long to corrupt them. And like this article says many of them have sold out before they left home.
Thieves and scoundrels that is what they are. They don't make that much money and they all leave office millionaires. It is all public record, their stock portfolios out perform the average public by 30%. don't you think they are paying something for that kind of information? And what are the cards each party holds that makes the individual representatives tow the line and vote as they are instructed? It is corrupt all the way through. Neither party can claim the moral high-ground.
The people who are supposed to be watching out for us are stealing from us and as it looks now, what they can't steal they are giving to their rich friends. No, don't start blaming some president whoever you like is just as complicit in the ongoing scam as the next one. Our President is actually granted very few powers that can affect our daily life. Presidents all promise things they couldn't deliver at all without Congressional approval. What that does is it lets the masses focus on the President when the real scoundrels that are causing the destruction of our country are in the two houses of congress. - Reply to this comment
- As a retired carpenter I appreciate a man who can hit the nail squarely on the head. We have the best Congress money can buy, and that apparently now goes for five ninths of the Supreme Court as well.
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- Yes! Thank you, Bob Schieffer. Once again you have eloquently cut to the quick. Until we get control of the money in our politics, we are in grave danger of losing the most valuable part of our Democracy: the people. My suggestion: limit the amount candidates can spend, instead of the amount individuals, PACs, and corporations can contribute. Sadly I don't see our Congress getting behind this idea.
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- In the UK, on average each candidate can only spend perhaps ?10,000 in a general election campaign (typically four weeks up to polling day). Although sitting Members of Parliament will have the clear advantage of incumbency and using official communications media to promote themselves and their campaigns the outlay is still minuscule in comparison with the US. That said, the problem is growing in the UK as politicians find ways to raise more money and spend more money between elections.
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