Monday, September 15, 2008

Change in Washington D.C.

Unless you do not have a television set or radio, you know that the two principal candidates for the presidency of the United States, the Democrat and the Republican, are both stating they are the candidate to bring change to Washington D.C. They both list items they plan to reform - health care, earmarks, taxes, education, ., etc and the list goes on.
However, what neither of them have been able to do to my satisfaction is explain how these changes are going to come about. Let's face it, the president does not act alone, he or she needs to work with Congress to make any change viable. Is that likely to happen? I hate to be a pessimist, but I doubt it.
Remember back in the 90's and the Republicans charged into Congress with all kind of lofty ideals and goals? One of them was the idea of term limits. Now that is an idea I think we the people should really press for.
Let's limit congressmen/women to two four year terms (two years is ridiculous, they spend half their time campaigning for the next term), senators to two six year terms, and leave the president with two four year terms they currently are allowed.
This is the kind of change that could make a huge difference in how people voted. Maybe finally we could get our elected officials to vote with a conscience instead of worrying what donator they might offend prior to their next campaign. A steady turn over in Washington D.C. could just lead to truly fresh ideas and make public service a true option for the majority, rather than the few who dominate the Capital today.
One other change I would like to see is a viable third and even fourth political party. Multiple parties would liven things up, make the politicians more accountable and hopefully force the legislators to actually be concerned with the true needs of their constituents, not the "needs" they feel will best serve their electorate.
Of course, for the moment, all we can do is wait until next January and see if after the inauguration, whoever is elected lives up to the word.
If they don't, then let's talk term limits, multiple parties and real CHANGE.

3 comments:

Rebecafw said...

Something to give you a laugh:

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/palin-hillary-open/656281/

Atom Ant said...

We need to take a quiz:
How many active political parties are there in Canada, England, France, Brazil, Australia, Germany, Italy, Poland, etc.?

Maybe someone knows the answers!

Atom Ant said...

More laughs:
http://www.peteyandpetunia.com/VoteHere/VoteHere.htm