I was forwarded an email this week about congressional reform. They're calling it the "Congressional Reform Act of 2010" though I haven't been able to dig up a source, or anything indicating whether or not it's real.
Anyway, it goes something like this:
1. Term Limits: 12 years only, one of the possible options below.
A. Two Six year Senate terms B. Six Two year House terms C. One Six year Senate term and three Two Year House terms
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
2. No Tenure / No Pension:
A congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security:
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund moves to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, Congress participates with the American people.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan just as all Americans.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work. 8. All contracts with past and present congressmen are void effective 1/1/2011.
The American people did not make these contracts with congressmen, congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
This sound really good to me. Seriously. There are term limits for other offices, why not the House and Senate? I'm not 100% sure I agree with the healthcare and retirement fund portions, though it would force them to think more about the decisions they are making.
Congress, especially the Senate, has proven to be a completely ineffectual body of government. Take a look at the mess they made of healthcare. We're going to be forced into buying healthcare from a third party with penalty of a fine if we don't have any? How does that help anyone? The problem was never that people didn't want healthcare, it was the people couldn't afford healthcare. Now you've forced people into a corner and there's really nowhere to run.
It would be wonderful to see congressional reform, but let's get real. In order to get congressional reform, you need to have congress pass a bill to reform themselves. That's not likely to happen. Would you consciously give yourself a pay cut, lose decent benefits, and put an and to your own career? I think not.
But, it's a new year. Maybe we'll see an actual miracle this year?
I was listening to MP3s from the Penn Jilletteradio show the other day and the subject of Gay Marriage came up. What's interesting here is Penn's view on marriage in general, not just gay marriage. As I listened, I found myself agreeing more and more with him.
The general idea goes something like this. There is a push to legalize gay marriage. There are arguments on both sides, some good, some insane. But, the bottom line seems to be that homosexual couples would like to enjoy the same benefits that heterosexual couples do. It's purely a legal argument, not a religious one.
The arguments against gay marriage seem to be almost exclusively religion oriented. Some believe it is morally wrong for two people of the same sex to be together. Some believe it's against their religion. And some believe that same-sex marriage will lead to other insane things like people marrying animals. The latter argument is rather insane because regardless of the desire, animals cannot enter into legally binding contracts, which a marriage is. Therefore, marrying your dog still won't be allowed.
Regardless of the kook theory, we need to look a little deeper at this. The source of most arguments against same-sex marriage are rooted in religion. According to the first amendment to the Constitution, however, there must be a separation of church and state. Given this amendment and the arguments against same-sex marriage, this is an easy win, right? Well... not really. There's a deeper problem here.
Marriage itself is generally recognized as a religious ceremony, though civil unions can and do exist. When the marriage laws were first put into place, same-sex relations were secretive due to societal pressure, shame, and the general belief that same-sex relations were immoral. At the same time, religion played a big part in making many of the laws that stand today, regardless of the first amendment.
Fast forward to today and you have laws that identify marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The problem here is that the government should have no say in what a marriage is, nor should the government define what a person can do in the privacy of their own bedroom. So, the underlying issue here is whether or not marriages should be recognized at all. And when you boil it all down, the government portion of marriage exists solely in the contractual obligations and benefits bestowed.
What if we did away with "government approved" marriage and moved solely to a contractual system wherein any two individuals could enter a legally binding contract that would allow them certain rights. For instance, if two persons are contractually bound, they could enjoy the same health benefits. If something were to happen to one of them, the other could handle any of the "next of kin" duties such as healthcare decisions or inheritance of property. As it stands right now, if a person enters a same-sex relationship and one of the partners is sick or dies, the other partner has no rights at all to any property not in their name.
The laws can be written in ways to prevent "polygamous" contracts as well. An added benefit here may be for relatives to enter into these contracts as well, irregardless of whether the relationship is sexual or not. There are likely scenarios where relatives such as brothers and sisters, or cousins, live together as a single unit, similar to a married couple.
Changing the laws to work in this way preserves the so-called "sanctity" of marriage. Churches can still perform marriage ceremonies and even choose to not recognize same-sex unions. There is no change to the status quo with respect to their beliefs. The major difference here is the legal recognition of these unions for the purpose of benefits, taxes, etc.
I think this may be a workable way forward, preserving everyone's beliefs and still providing for all. The biggest hurdle here is that proponents of marriage will immediately see this as an attack on marriage itself and not a preservation of sanctity. Perhaps cooler heads will rule. Regardless, I definitely see same-sex marriage being legal within the next 10 to 20 years.
These are the people representing you, America. Instead of fair, balanced debate of the issues, the GOP resorts to interrupting the process and acting like petulant children. The people of America have spoken and ELECTED those that are in congress. Obviously we want those people representing us. We want them making these decisions, and we want to see health care reform move forward.
The GOP had their chance to show America that it was right. They released details of their so-called healthcare plan (HR 3962) that they claim is better and will cover more than the democratic bill. In fact, however, the CBO reports that their bill will have almost no effect on healthcare at all. It will reduce the deficit, but just barely. Quoting from the CBO:
CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that the amendment would reduce federal deficits by $68 billion over the 2010-2019 period; it would also slightly reduce federal budget deficits in the following decade, relative to those projected under current law, with a total effect during that decade that is in a broad range between zero and one-quarter percent of gross domestic product.
But, you say, there are provisions in the bill to reduce the cost even more and help people afford it! Well, the CBO looked at this as well and concluded:
CBO and JCT estimate that those provisions would increase federal budget deficits by about $8 billion over the 2010-2019 period, reducing the number of nonelderly people without health insurance by about 3 million in 2019 and leaving about 52 million nonelderly residents uninsured. The share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage in 2019— 83 percent — would be roughly in line with the current share.
So after all of the crap they've been spouting about how much better their bill is, in the end, it helps no one. In fact, after ten years, there will be LESS coverage. Genius. Keep up the great work, you morons..
Found this over on mint.com ... Pretty decent depiction of what's going on and how to handle it. In short, stop freaking out over the Swine Flu. It's just the flu. That's all. Just a bit more catching than we're used to. So you know how to deal with it, right? Use your common sense. Wash your hands, cover your mouth if you cough, etc. If you're sick, stay home and try not to spread it. If you're sick and really feeling bad, call a doctor. If you're having trouble breathing, have a high fever, or have some other sever symptom, go to the emergency room.
See? Easy enough. It's not all that bad. As for the vaccine, use your common sense. If you're in a high risk group, go get vaccinated. If you're not, then don't bother, leave the vaccine for those that really need it.
Religion ... The cause of so many of the worlds current problems. From the fanatics who will do anything, including die, for their supposed cause, to those that get so caught up in religion, they believe the impossible and hurt those closest to them.
Then there are those who embrace it sanely and use it to be better people. They don't preach, they don't push their religion on others, they just try to be examples.
Well, I guess it has some merits.. So if you're looking for a religion, here's some help. Thanks lol god !
