Term Limits and Taxes

[Philip]

Some good ideas: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rick-s ... erm-limits

Why should people camp out in Washington for 20, 30, sometimes 40 years? Even a president can't go beyond 8 years!

[Hortator]

This is how they do it in Mexico: the president gets ONE 6-year limit. Why no re-election? Because the president spends the first term running a long re-election bid as an incumbent with all the advantages of being an incumbent. Then second term rolls around, and they are nowhere to be found. Napping at private villas, yucking it up with aristocrats, or just plain goofing off. Speaking of the last 50 years of presidents btw, maybe even 75.

The president can keep his campaign offices open, or at least on stand-by for the next election. And that's really unfair for challengers who start at a huge financial disadvantage.

I mentioned the advantages of being an incumbent. This is ESPECIALLY true at the state level, where some senators and reps have served longer than some of the oldest kings in history. Like if a red gets a red seat in a red district, it's pretty much guaranteed for their lifetime. Assuming there is no demographic change, as we have seen in the 90s up to today, which is actually a really effective idea on their opponent's end. Underhanded, could boomerang on them, but effective for unseating deeply rooted incumbents. All you need to know is that California was once a crimson-red state. I rest my case.

Also, with a 6-year term limit, there also needs to be a mass job termination on that date. Everybody in the executive branch who are "holdovers" from the previous admin need to go, period. We have seen enough leaks and sabotages out of pure political spite from 2000-today to know that bureaucrats are no better than any one of us, and most likely, much worse human beings. Probably even more hard to get rid of than incumbents, even.

I say term limits for all, but you'd think they would vote for their own limitation of power? It would require a modern-day Cincinnatus or Washington to exert a massive amount of power, and then just shelve it away, resisting it's awesome temptation. I yearn for the day we can find somebody like that, but so far, there have only been 2 in recorded history, and we are probably not due for another one in a while......

[edwardmurphy]

Also, with a 6-year term limit, there also needs to be a mass job termination on that date. Everybody in the executive branch who are "holdovers" from the previous admin need to go, period. We have seen enough leaks and sabotages out of pure political spite from 2000-today to know that bureaucrats are no better than any one of us, and most likely, much worse human beings. Probably even more hard to get rid of than incumbents, even.

I range from agreement to ambivalence on most of your comments, but this one I strongly disagree with. A complete purge of every position in the Executive Branch would be the equivalent of firing every single person in a management position every time a company CEO retired. It would be incredibly disruptive to the day to day functioning of the Federal Government. It would completely eliminate decades of experience and institutional memory. It would be a massive disincentive to taking an Executive Branch position for anything other than purely partisan reasons. It would strip away another layer of Presidential accountability at a time when the Executive Branch has already accumulated a frightening amount of power. It's a very bad, very dangerous idea.