The Strongest Argument for Term Limits: Nancy Pelosi

Now I’m gonna try my best to give this argument elements that Republicans and Democrats alike can identify with. So if you don’t like what I’m saying at first, just bear with me and hear me out.

For awhile now, I’ve argued that strict term limits are necessary to ensure that representatives remain representative of the people. If we are continually selecting new representatives from the pool of the people, then we can ensure that our government will continue to be representative of our will, rather than having career politicians continually reelected through name-recognition and corrupt deal-making.

One argument against this that I frequently hear is that freshman politicians aren’t as good at getting things done. It takes someone with political experience to know how to make compromises, rally their base, and do all the politicking necessary to get bills passed.

Enter Nancy Pelosi. She is figurative poster-boy of “political experience.” Well-known for her ability to rally her base and do all the politicking necessary to push controversial legislation through, she is seeking another term as the House Democratic Caucus leader, which would make her the Minority Leader. However, because of her demotion from House Majority Leader to House Minority Leader, everyone in her chain of command is forced to take a demotion, and not everyone is happy about it. This presents Pelosi with a problem, because it means some of her fellow party leaders may set their eyes on the prize of a higher office- specifically, Pelosi’s position of Minority Leader.

However, doing what Pelosi does best, she found a compromise which all contenders for party leadership can be happy with: create a new office so that everyone can be in charge.  By creating a new office, she makes sure that all leaders in her party maintain positions of party leadership, preventing a power struggle which would’ve had the potential to unseat her.

So, with Pelosi’s vast experience at politicking, she has benefited herself and her fellow party leaders, but is this solution good for everyone? It’s certainly not good for the Democrats to have someone with a 21% favorable rating among independents (29% overall) to continue leading their party in the House after the massive shellacking they received. I mean, with such a massive election loss, which she completely did not predict, she must be doing something very wrong for her party. Keeping her on as Minority Leader is like Christmas for the Republican Party, because they can continue to paint the Democrats as “the Party of Pelosi.”

Another problem with this is that it indicates she’s willing to create new bureaucracy out of nothing, for no purpose, except to benefit herself and her friends. This demonstrates a capacity for corruption which needs to not be playing a part in the process of crafting legislation.

Pelosi’s political skill has been harmful to both her party and the people she represents. So, if giving incumbents the opportunity to be reelected selects for experience at politicking, then I think we should be doing everything we can to keep incumbents out of the election process entirely, enforcing strict term limits.

The goal of a representative democracy is not to “get things done.” It is to represent the will of the people as best as possible without making every single citizen take the time to read and vote on every single bill.

Should America Bid Farewell to Exceptional Freedom?

Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin gave this speech on March 31st:

Last week, on March 21st, Congress enacted a new Intolerable Act. Congress passed the Health Care bill – or I should say, one political party passed it – over a swelling revolt by the American people. The reform is an atrocity. It mandates that every American must buy health insurance, under IRS scrutiny. It sets up an army of federal bureaucrats who ultimately decide for you how you should receive Health Care, what kind, and how much…or whether you don’t qualify at all. Never has our government claimed the power to decide when each of us has lived well enough or long enough to be refused life-saving medical assistance.

This presumptuous reform has put this nation … once dedicated to the life and freedom of every person … on a long decline toward the same mediocrity that the social welfare states of Europe have become.

Americans are preparing to fight another American Revolution, this time, a peaceful one with election ballots…but the “causes” of both are the same:

Should unchecked centralized government be allowed to grow and grow in power … or should its powers be limited and returned to the people?

Should irresponsible leaders in a distant capital be encouraged to run up scandalous debts without limit that crush jobs and stall prosperity … or should the reckless be turned out of office and a new government elected to live within its means?

Should America bid farewell to exceptional freedom and follow the retreat to European social welfare paternalism … or should we make a new start, in the faith that boundless opportunities belong to the workers, the builders, the industrious, and the free?

We are at the beginning of an election campaign like you’ve never seen before!

We are challenged to answer again the momentous questions our Founders raised when they launched mankind’s noblest experiment in human freedom. They made a fundamental choice and changed history for the better. Now it’s our high calling to make that choice: between managed scarcity, or solid growth … between living in dependency on government handouts, or taking responsibility for our lives … between confiscating the earnings of some and spreading them around, or securing everyone’s right to the rewards of their work … between bureaucratic central government, or self-government … between the European social welfare state or the American idea of free market democracy.

What kind of nation do we wish to be? What kind of society will we hand down to our children and future generations? In the coming watershed election, the nature of this unique and exceptional land is at stake. We will choose one of two different paths. And once we make that choice, there’s no going back.

This is not the kind of election I would prefer. But it was forced on us by the leaders of our government.

These leaders are walking America down a new path … creating entitlements and promising benefits that model the United States after the European Union: a welfare state society where most people pay little or no taxes but become dependent on government benefits … where tax reduction is impossible because more people have a stake in the welfare state than in free enterprise … where high unemployment is accepted as a way of life, and the spirit of risk-taking is smothered by a tangle of red tape from an all-providing centralized government.

True, the United States has been moving slowly toward this path a long time. And Democrats and Republicans share the blame. Now we are approaching a “tipping point.” Once we pass it, we will become a different people. Before the “tipping point,” Americans remain independent and take responsibility for their own well-being. Once we have gone beyond the “tipping point,” that self-sufficient outlook will be gradually transformed into a soft despotism a lot like Europe’s social welfare states. Soft despotism isn’t cruel or mean, it’s kindly and sympathetic. It doesn’t help anyone take charge of life, but it does keep everyone in a happy state of childhood. A growing centralized bureaucracy will provide for everyone’s needs, care for everyone’s heath, direct everyone’s career, arrange everyone’s important private affairs, and work for everyone’s pleasure.

The only hitch is, government must be the sole supplier of everyone’s happiness … the shepherd over this flock of sheep.

Am I exaggerating? Are we really reaching this “tipping point”? Exact and precise measures cannot be made, but an eye-opening study by the Tax Foundation, a reliable and non-partisan research group, tells us that in 2004, 20 percent of US households were getting about 75 percent of their income from the federal government. In other words, one out of five families in America is already government dependent. Another 20 percent were receiving almost 40 percent of their income from federal programs, so another one in five has become government reliant for their livelihood.
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It continues. I urge every American to read the entirety of the article and ask yourself the rhetorical questions posed in it. Paul Ryan is a smart man- he had Obama on his toes at the Health Care Summit  and he’s the one who exposed the deceitful gimmicks used by the Democrats to get the answer they wanted from the CBO. I don’t agree with everything in Rep. Ryan’s proposed solution, but he is right that we are at the tipping point, where we have a choice between a nation built on individual freedom and a nation hanging from the precarious limb of government support. We are approaching the end of an era, and it’s up to all of us to decide what the future will look like.

I, for one, choose freedom.