You can still have term limits and have seasoned legislators....term limits of 12 or 18 years for a senator and say 10 for a Rep could do enough to keep that benefit without the tremendous baggage of folks milking the system forever. However, I agree that gerrymandering is 5x the problem this is...
House terms need to be longer. Half their tenure is spent on campaigning. That’s dumb. I think we should increase term lengths but make it easier for the constituents to vote out representatives
If we address gerrymandering and strengthen ethics laws for politicians we might not need term limits.
related https://nypost.com/2023/06/04/return-of-the-hochulmander-dems-are-intent-on-rigging-the-vote-again/ Return of the Hochulmander: Dems are intent on rigging the vote again By Post Editorial Board June 4, 2023 12:18am Gov. Kathy Hochul and fellow Democrats failed spectacularly last year in their bid to snub voters and rig congressional- districts maps. So, of course, they’re trying again this year. On Thursday, an appellate panel will hear their argument for a special new round of redistricting, claiming the maps produced last year only applied only to 2022. It’s nonsense on stilts, of course, which is why the Albany County Supreme Court shot it down. But this time, devious Dems have a plot that could prove successful — voters be damned. Last year, Democrats tried to ram through gerrymandered maps that were supposed to result in just four Republican House seats from New York (of 26). That defied language voters inserted in the state Constitution in 2014 that expressly forbid gerrymandering. The courts then threw out their maps (natch) and appointed a special master to draw up fair ones, which led Republicans to win 11 seats instead of four — and helped return the House to the GOP. Now Dems want another chance to gerrymander, in defiance of voters once again. And once again, their claim — that last year’s maps need to be redrawn — flies in the face of constitutional language, this time banning mid-decade redistricting. Such a move would also confuse voters, many of whom could find themselves in another new district, after shifting last year. Of course, Dems don’t care about that; they’re determined to rig the maps and lock in Democratic control everywhere. And this time they’ve got an ace in the hole: a Court of Appeals (the state’s highest court) led by a chief judge, Rowan Wilson, chosen expressly for his progressive bona fides. Far-left lawmakers rejected Hochul’s first pick for the position, Hector LaSalle, because they couldn’t count on him to flout the law and do their bidding. (It’s true: They virtually admitted as much.) If Dems now lose at the appellate level — and they plainly should — they figure they’ll just get the Court of Appeals to greenlight a new round of gerrymandering that could shut out Republicans again. That is, they rigged the high court so they can rig the maps. The Dems’ one-party rule has saddled New York with high crime rates, soaring taxes, ailing schools and a host of other woes. If they get away with their new bid to gerrymander and lock in Democratic congressional seats, it’ll not only snub voters but also help transport their disastrous policies to Washington.
ok. so we are speaking semantics, as usual. And drop the citizenship nonsense. We don't need to delve into a civics discussion. Yes, if the US defaulted on certain obligations, there would be serious economical turmoil that could potentially spiral into a grave situation, not just for the United States, but for most of the world. Even a short temporary technical default could create this scenario. Senior politicians know this. Yes, there are junior politicians who have no business in Washington and could be oblivious to the fallout. There are some really incompetent politicians out there, which is why the belief of randomly picking people to run our country is extremely idiotic. That said, no, there was no 'crisis adverted'. This was all political posturing. McConnel is a POS and he fits right in with the gerontocracy that needs to be removed from our government. McConnell fully understands a default would result in a serious detriment to the rich and powerful that keeps him in power. Neither party would ever allow this to happen. Its easy for politicans like DeSantis who have no skin in the game to crow on about wanting a default, pandering to that particular base who would love to see the government burn. I will concede and state that a crisis was impending however this was not adverted. By the Republicans taking this down to the line, forcing the Treasury to draw down the TGA to almost zero, this puts our government in serious risk of upcoming market conditions. Maybe Yellen can navigate this over the next several months but its not looking good. If we run into a liquidity crunch over the next couple months, this will be the Republicans fault.
the intellectual dishonesty of Charlie Bilello, intentionally omitted to comment on the other side of the ledger, how many new jobs created as a result, how many more tax revenues created (payroll tax, income tas, sales tax, etc) how much did the GDP grow ?
Increases in revenue just lead to more spending, not debt reduction. Similar to the phenomenon where building more lanes doesn't help traffic congestion, it just leads to more drivers.
So, reducing the number of lanes and royally pissing off all the drivers? This is why Republicans give great lip service to cutting spending, but when they are in power, they dare not. Debt = Revenue - Spending. Spending going up is fine as long as revenue also goes up. If you reduce revenue, the debt is going to go up unless you cut spending, which Republican dare not do. The problem with the Republican decade of economic philosophy is that they only consider one variable in this equation. It's always reducing taxes and then hoping for an economic boom to increase tax revenue. This trickle-down economics has been a massive failure, leading to massive debt. Democrats, on the other hand, at least look at this with balance, trying to match revenue for new spending. The only thing the two sides somewhat agree on is spending on investment, understanding that this type of spending yields a greater economic boom, which increases revenue later down the road. The result of the two differences in philosophy over the decades is illustrated below.
Both parties engage in deficit spending (which will soon destroy the dollar as it is inflated away to pay off the debt). A POTUS is chart is silly given it's Congress that has the spending power.
With one side reducing revenue, mostly for the benefit of the very top. Simplistic much. The POTUS is the single most important actor with the veto power. Congress has the power to spend with approval from the executive, and the executive also has the power to spend with approval from Congress. The same applies to tax cuts.
you do understand the dollar index, DXY, no? the DXY tracks the value of the USD against a basket of important / leading currencies in the world when Trump left office in late Jan 2021, https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/dxy, dxy was ~~ 91. ~~ 2 yrs later, the DXY is now 102. 12% higher than when Trump was fired by the American voters yet you don't have anything more relevant ! `