The Fiscal Times: Report: Rob Carver: Senate Alums Know How to Fix Our Broken Government

U.S. Congress

The Fiscal Times: Report: Rob Garver: Senate Alums Know How to Fix Our Broken Government

There really isn’t any plan that would fix our U.S. Congress that is so unpopular that only its members, family and staff for the members and perhaps some mental patients approve of the job that it is doing. First of all which might seem foreign to Europeans and social democrats in America is that we have a bicameral Congress with a House and Senate. That is right we do not have a Congress and a Senate which some on the Left (MSNBC comes to mind and others) do not seem to understand. And they are independent of each other and have to work with each other to pass laws out of Congress.

Which means the House would have to fix itself and the Senate the same for Congress to be fixed. And in the future this blog may propose to plan to do both. But what Congress can do together is pass laws regulating how its members are elected.

Like taking the responsibility away from state legislatures in how House districts are drawn. Not taking the power away from the states or the legislatures completely. But giving state elections commissions to the authority to draw up districts. And not draw them up to favor any political party. But draw them up that represents the state . So Republicans or Democrats wouldn’t have more House districts because their party controls the state house and the legislature. Because now those seats would be drawn based on party membership of the state. Not based on which party currently controls the state. These commissions would make their suggestions. The legislature and governor would have to approve them to become law. And then the Federal Election Commission would have to approve them as well to make sure they are consistent with party registration of the states.

Another idea would be full-disclosure that would cover all political contributions. Whether they are given to incumbents, candidates or third-party groups. All contributions would have to be fully disclosed the amount of money that is given, plus by which individual or group gave the money.

These are some of the things that Congress the House and Senate could do working together could do to fix Congress. Because their members would be less willing to take money from groups that are controversial and feel the need to hide. But also less willing to be associated with them in third-party groups like when one of these groups runs an ad against their opponent. But House districts would now be drawn in a way where they are less partisan. And where the representative would be representing a more diverse population without the ability to take such partisan stances on issues. Because it could cost them politically.

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Edward Morrissey: ‘Why A ‘Too Big to Manage’ Government Should Downsize’

Source:The Fiscal Times– welcome to The White House.

“To listen to press secretaries and Congressional hearings, one might think that an epidemic had erupted in the nation’s capital – an epidemic of incompetence and absentee leadership. Practically no area of government has immunity from this disease, whether it’s at the White House, the State Department, the IRS and Treasury, or at the Department of Justice.

Let’s start with the White House, which may well be the epicenter of the disease. The administration faces at least three major scandals – Benghazi, the Department of Justice’s snooping on reporters for the AP and Fox News, and the IRS targeting of conservative groups for harassment and procedural blocks on their tax-exempt applications.

To hear Jay Carney answer questions from the media, no one at the White House knew anything about any of these issues in the executive branch they manage, at least not until they heard about it on the television news. (Presumably, this is a big compliment to CNN.)”

From The Fiscal Times 

“Government planning and detailed control of economic activity lessens productive innovation, and consumer choice. Good, better, best, are replaced by ”approved” or ”authorized.” Friedman shows how ‘established’ industries or methods, seek government protection or subsidization in their attempts to stop or limit product improvements which they don’t control. Friedman visits India, Japan and U.S. Discussion Participants: Robert McKenzie, Moderator; Milton Friedman; Richard Deason, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; Donald Rumsfeld, President, G.D. Searle & Company; Helen Hughes, Director of Economic Studies, World Bank; Jagdish Bhagwati, Professor of Economics, MIT.”

Source:Free To Choose Network– from Professor Milton Friedman in 1980.

From Free To Choose Network 

Professor Milton Friedman had a theory about big government and was the main reason and cause of it and he related it to the problems with a big, centralized, national government. And argued the bigger and more centralized a national government is, the more waste that you’ll have it, the fewer people that it will be able to serve well, and the more bought off politicians that you’ll have in Washington. Because all the lobbyists and political activists will always know where to go to get some politician in Congress or in the Administration to for them exactly what they want them to do for them.

Professor Friedman’s solution to big government was a compromise: he argued that if we’re going to have all of these Federal social and domestic programs (because he rather see them eliminated) he said that the best way to run these programs is to get them out of Washington and back home to the states, localities, and people that could actually use that assistance. His compromise solution to big government was essentially federalism.

If you don’t like any of these so-called scandals that are going on in the Obama Administration right now and you don’t trust Congress (even with a Republican House) to deal with them, you should be arguing for federalism and decentralization of the U.S. Government right now. You decentralize Uncle Sam, you kick out a lot of Washington lobbyists and force them to perhaps go work for a living and find something else to do, hopefully not at taxpayers expense.

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Pop User: ‘Howard Phillips Welcomes Ron Paul (1997)’

Source:Pop User– U.S. Representative Ron Paul (Libertarian, Texas) on the Howard Phillips Show, in 1997.

Source:The Daily Times

“Howard Phillips, founder of the Constitution Party, welcomes Ron Paul to the Conservative Roundtable. This is a classic edition from 1997. Paul talks about his run to reclaim his seat after imposing his own belief in Congressional term limits on himself, focusing on what kind of character voters are comfortable supporting. Ron Paul of course ran for president in 2008. He also discusses the 9th and 10th amendment, honest and sound money, public housing, runaway government deficit spending, inflation, the Federal Reserve – Fed, and how the public must demand real change.”

From Pop User

What I personally respect about Ron Paul is that the Ron Paul you see back in the late 1990s (in 1997) is the same Ron Paul today and fighting and believing in the same things, in what he views as a constitutional government and that the Federal Government is grown way too big and it must be limited back to where it was pre-New Deal of the 1930s and so-forth. And that we need more individual freedom both economic and personal and eliminate prohibition all together.

What I like about Ron Paul as a Liberal myself (and not a Libertarian, in Ron Paul’s case) is the whole idea of individual freedom both economic and personal as well, as well as personal responsibility. But even though I believe the Federal Government is too big and more power needs to be sent down to the states and people themselves, we disagree about how much smaller the Federal Government should be.

But where Ron Paul was sixteen years ago is the Ron Paul that we see today and is one politician that you can count on. At least to the extent that you know what he believes and that he won’t change his politics when the politics change.

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