Give me your opinion on this. Just looking for how it strikes you, do you think it would sell as a platform for a political group, blah blah blah....


1. Ban congressmen, senators, and White House officials from lobbying for five years.

2. Freeze the pay of congressmen, senators, and White House officials until the federal budget is balanced. This includes cost-of-living adjustments!

3. Force political candidates to immediately scan and post all campaign contributions on their campaign website. Failure to do so results in criminal penalties.

4. Pass term limits now! Since the House of Representatives authorizes the federal spending, limit House members to three terms (six years).

5. Make Congress and every Washington bureaucracy undergo an independent, professional audit, line by line, program by program, every four years.

6. Pass a constitutional amendment requiring Washington to balance the budget every year except when Congress passes a resolution declaring a national emergency.

7. Create a federal rainy-day fund that would set aside one-half of one percent of all tax receipts each year for national, state, and local emergencies.

8. Reenact pay-as-you-go rules that would require Congress to offset new spending programs and tax cuts with spending cuts from other programs.

9. Reinstitute congressional spending caps that would force congressmen or senators to live within their previous spending projections. These caps will not be broken unless Congress passed a separate resolution declaring a national emergency as described in number 6.

10. Pass a new American tax code written by a bipartisan panel of budget experts instead of the lobbyist groups who regularly carve out special-interest deductions and greatly simplify the tax system.

[Edited on September 20, 2005 at 10:19 PM. Reason : .]

9/20/2005 10:14:11 PM

1) So you would speicifically restrict the free speech of individuals for because of their chosen profession?

2) Sure why not until you consider that the most likely place they'll take the money to balance from will be the pay checks of those whose pay was not frozen. Good idea on paper, hard to implement right.

3) You could make a freedom of speech argument here too.

4) Term limits are worthless.

5) I thought you wanted to try and kill some federal spending

6) Problem is, congress decides what constitutes a national emergency, remember they make the laws.

7) Will be abused like a redneck wife

8) Sure why not

9) See 6

10) Good luck.

9/20/2005 10:33:54 PM

1. There is already a time frame for how long a congressional staffer has to wait before lobbying, but i'm not sure about actual members of congress; now, i don't think this is a good idea

2. please name 5 members of congress/senators who would not make as much if not more if they had not gone to congress

3. there are enough websites that already post this information

4. uhm, i guess you'd like to ignore this little thing called "experience"
and if you have a 6 year term limit, you don't have people outlasting presidents, which is quite important

5. LESS BEURACRACY BY MAKING MORE BEURACRACY! you do realize that they basically have to do this anyway WHEN MAKING THE BUDGET

6. no state would ratify this, and definitely not the 30-some that would have to do it to make it an amendment; you know why - BECAUSE THEY NEED THE FEDERAL PORK PROJECTS SO THEY DON'T HAVE TO BUY THEM THEMSELVES

7. its called FEMA, mmm-kay pumpkin

8. because fuck whatever doesn't matter to the majority!

9. whats that little thing we like in america? hmmmmm
oh yeah GROWTH

10. did you know if you run for president on this platform, you get to host SNL; its true


wtf
was this your poli-sci 101 homework?

"HOW TO FIX THE GOVERNMENT WITHOUT ACTUALLY KNOWING HOW IT WORKS"

9/20/2005 10:42:30 PM

Quote :

"10. did you know if you run for president on this platform, you get to host SNL; its true"

ahaha

thats quality folks

9/20/2005 11:07:27 PM

^^ This is actually from Joe Scarborough's book, a Republican representative for 6 years and now on MSNBC. (page 180 in the hardback, called the "Taxpayers' Bill of Rights formed by the pollster that came up with the original "Contract with America")

A reform group whose site I frequent who don't care much for the Republicans and Democrats in power are debating having a "Contract with America" type deal to sell their message.

[Edited on September 20, 2005 at 11:14 PM. Reason : .]

9/20/2005 11:10:19 PM

this is why we all laugh at scarborough country

9/20/2005 11:12:01 PM

^ shrugs shoulders

I can't think of anyone that's better.

9/20/2005 11:14:33 PM

heh
scarborough

that makes it even funnier

whats the percentage of the freshmen class that signed the contract w/ america who have actually kept it? (i.e, left after the term limit)

9/21/2005 12:12:09 AM

I think he says in his book around 10% of the 74, including him since he left after 3 terms.

By the way, the reason for the money items on the 10 points:

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

9/21/2005 6:46:24 AM

Quote :

"this is why we all laugh at scarborough country"

haha, so true.

9/21/2005 8:24:06 AM