Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the various events associated with the opening of the 113th session of Congress. As a guest of Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Maryland's Congressman for the Eighth District, I was able to witness first-hand this biennial tradition. Those representatives and senators who were either re-elected or were selected by the voters of their respective districts for the first time will now begin the challenging task of helping to govern our great nation.
Like many others, I hope that the next two-year session of Congress will ultimately prove to be far more productive than the session that just concluded. Looking back, the ineffectiveness of the 112th session of Congress will certainly be seen as legendary, rivaled only by the gridlock seen in the "do-nothing" 80th Congress. Legislators during that session (which ran from 1947 until 1949), worked to obstruct President Harry Truman's attempts to enact pragmatic programs meant to ensure both domestic prosperity and international security for the United States.
I am however cautiously optimistic that things could change in 2013. A series of developments took place within the U.S. Senate that offer a glimmer of hope that some legislators may wish to take a different path. In the depths of the acrimony associated with seeking to avert the so-called fiscal cliff two individuals sought to move beyond the rancor.
Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell worked together to craft a compromise that was acceptable to senators from both sides of the aisle. In the end, this proposal—enacted as the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012—was approved on an 89-8 vote in the Senate and a 257-167 vote in the House of Representatives. While neither side got everything they wanted, both sides could claim credit for helping to avert a larger crisis.
What Biden and McConnell chose to do was to put their politics aside and rely upon the mutual respect and personal relationship they had developed as a consequence of serving together in the Senate for nearly twenty-five years. This was certainly the correct approach. While there will always be real differences of opinion regarding policy matters in our republic, we must not let these differences overwhelm us. If Americans—both those in elected office and citizens generally—continue to view those they disagree with as somehow "evil or villainous" because they see things another way, then we will never rise above our differences.
I believe that there are legislators in the House of Representatives who would also prefer to employ the collaborative approach used by Biden and McConnell. In remarks made after being sworn in for his sixth term, Representative Van Hollen noted that "Congress needs to be a group of people that come together to find real solutions to difficult problems." Let's hope that most of his colleagues can agree with this statement, and do what is necessary to live by it.
However, I have this oceanfront property in Kansas I have been trying to sell. ;-)
Folks should be more angry that the BTCs were made permanent. Yes, I'm suggesting they should have ended - within a couple years - for EVERYONE. Tax rates go back to 1999. The BTC's were not intended to be permanent, they were implemented because back in 2000 they could be afforded at the time (thanks to the dotcom boom and proper fiscal management at the time). These tax cuts should've been ended the moment we started invading countries and funneling trillions into the middle east - not to mention damaging millions of families for no good reason over the past decade. All this fiscal cliff deal did was screw us more in the longer term. Ending the BTC's were the easiest way to raise revenue. They could've done it gracefully over 2-3 years, to account for the recovering economy. It also didn't involve creating a new tax. It simply involved ending tax breaks our nation hasn't been able to afford for about 8 years now. However, the average rabble rabble see increased taxes, without being willing to see the bigger financial picture for our grandkids.
Our government should not be immune from similar risks.Therefore:Reduce the House of Representatives from the current 435 members to 218 members.Reduce Senate members from 100 to 50 (one per State). Then, reduce their remaining staff by 25%.Accomplish this over the next 8 years (two steps/two elections); of course this would require some redistricting.Some Yearly Monetary Gains Include:$44,108,400 for elimination of base pay for congress. (267 members X $165 ,200 pay/member/ yr.)$437,100,000 for elimination of their staff. (Estimate $1.3 Million in staff per each member of the House, and $3 Million in staff per each member of the Senate every year)$108,350,000 for the reduction in remaining staff by 25%.$7,500,000,000reduction in pork barrel earmarks each year.(Those members whose jobs are gone. Current estimates for total government pork earmarks are at $15 Billion/yr) ....
Summary of opportunity:$44,108,400 reduction of congress
CONGRESSIONAL CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM Term Limits. 12 years only, one of the possible options below..A. Two Six-year Senate terms B. Six Two-year House terms One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms No Tenure / No Pension.A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.Congress (past, present and future) participates in Social Security
Have you totaled up your savings by whosoever plan this is?
OT, I have been "good". But words like "gazillion" irritate me. Perhaps a flaw in my personality. "Enough" is never enough in my mind when it comes to the wealthy. When the Walton family net worth (top 6 members) is equal to over the total net worth of the bottom 40% of Americans, something is incredibly wrong. Yes, one family's wealth equals the total wealth of more than the bottom 40%. What do you think about that OT? Okay or is something smelly? Go check my numbers, we are a sick society when it comes to extreme wealth. Of course your number, if true as I have yet to check it, excludes the payroll taxes paid by workers as they are not "income" taxes but those taxes for Medicare and SS are considered "entitlements" and are the first on the list of the Repubs to cut benefits.
Regards
You state you run a small business, I hope you are better at math than what you have proposed. The US deficit problem is $1.2 Trillion (with a T), you have just described less than 1% savings. We still have a 99%+ problem. Please don't respond with "at least it is a start".