Posted by
Andrews on Friday, April 17, 2009 10:28:04 AM
Much has been said about term limits. Many argue they are a means to get rid of
our "royalty" in the government, to eliminate the phenomenon of legislators-for-life, and generally bring back some sanity to government. However, I doubt they would work in practice, for many of the same reasons we have the problems we do.
First, our voters, despite their complaints, don't seem to be too upset with all the interventionist government and pork barrel spending. you see, they hate all the pork on other districts, but the guy who brings the pork home tot hem is A-OK. Similarly, they hate intervention,
EXCEPT when it is
their pet peeve, then they are fine with just
ONE exception. It is a phenomenon
I have mentioned before, the fact that we complain about "big government", but when someone suggests the government should not solve a problem dear to our hearts, we vote out the small government advocate.
And that suggests that, while term limits may manage to create turnover, it is likely it will be turnover between the same and more of the same. We will still elect people who share our specific interventionist views, and support pork for our district alone. Simply demanding term limits will not mean that we will vote in any better quality of representative, just that the faces will change periodically.
Second, and even more significant, with a government as bloated and swollen as ours, someone will need to wield power. If the legislators turn over too regularly for any of them to seize total control, then we will simply see the locus of power shift, either to the executive branch or to the career bureaucrats. Term limits may manage to get rid of the professional legislators, but they will do nothing to curb government power, and as long as that power exists, someone will exercise it. We may enact term limits to find we change our oppressors from the slightly responsive elected officials to the completely unresponsive bureaucracy.
Finally, term limits have a potential downside. Think back to 1988 and ask yourself would we have been better off with a third Reagan term or a first Bush term? Well, thank term limits. Yes, term limits guarantee we won't see a career politician sitting in the same seat forever, but they also mean the people cannot reelect a truly successful politician either. It is a mixed bag. Granted, good politicians have been few and far between, so more bad ones would be kicked out. But then again, if you get a good one, don't you want to keep him as long as you can? Term limits may, in that sense at least, do more harm than good.
No, term limits are not the solution. They aren't even a stop-gap or temporary solution. If they move authority to the bureaucracy they may even be more damaging than the current system. In any case,
the real solution is obvious, if difficult. The solution is to remove these powers from the state, strip government of its expansive powers. If the government
has no effect on your life, then who cares who fills a seat in DC? They can go rot in congress forever if they have no power. And that, in the end, may be the best solution of all. Allow the royal congress to hold their seats forever, just take all their power away.