Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
vtsnowedin wrote:At first glance I think your proposal is too complicated for the voters to understand.
I'd keep it simpler and limit Senators to two six year terms and house members to four two year terms. I would also limit their pay raises to years when the budget is balanced and then be limited to some multiple of the median income. Also their retirement plan would be equal to rank and file Federal workers and their healthcare plan the same as Veteran's.
I would also ban any sixty vote rules as being un Democratic.
Tanada wrote:You really want to fix things? Make a Constitutional Amendment that anyone with a degree in Law ineligible for Congress in both houses. In two years we would get 33 new Senators and 400 new Representatives who would not be experts at twisting words to shape laws and violate the Constitution.
evilgenius wrote:Tanada wrote:You really want to fix things? Make a Constitutional Amendment that anyone with a degree in Law ineligible for Congress in both houses. In two years we would get 33 new Senators and 400 new Representatives who would not be experts at twisting words to shape laws and violate the Constitution.
You're just telling a joke.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
The only thing they try harder to do is get themselves and their party reelected.evilgenius wrote: but I think you're penalizing people who try harder than you give them credit for. .
vtsnowedin wrote:The only thing they try harder to do is get themselves and their party reelected.evilgenius wrote: but I think you're penalizing people who try harder than you give them credit for. .
I'll go one further on the merit pay. In any year where the budget is unbalanced I would cut Congressional pay including staffers by the percentage the budget was out of balance. This would insure balanced budgets in any year without a full out war going on.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Tanada wrote:vtsnowedin wrote:The only thing they try harder to do is get themselves and their party reelected.evilgenius wrote: but I think you're penalizing people who try harder than you give them credit for. .
I'll go one further on the merit pay. In any year where the budget is unbalanced I would cut Congressional pay including staffers by the percentage the budget was out of balance. This would insure balanced budgets in any year without a full out war going on.
I like it, it has a nice negative feedback correlation which all well designed systems posses.
evilgenius wrote:Tanada wrote:vtsnowedin wrote:The only thing they try harder to do is get themselves and their party reelected.evilgenius wrote: but I think you're penalizing people who try harder than you give them credit for. .
I'll go one further on the merit pay. In any year where the budget is unbalanced I would cut Congressional pay including staffers by the percentage the budget was out of balance. This would insure balanced budgets in any year without a full out war going on.
I like it, it has a nice negative feedback correlation which all well designed systems posses.
And it's just like punishing a really good teacher because the school they teach in is failing.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Tanada wrote: You have a bizarre view of reality. A teacher has no control over the curriculum they have to teach or the methods of discipline acceptable to the school system. A congressional Representative or a Senator MAKE THE RULES. To be fair you would need to be comparing punishing a Congressional Clerk who is just doing their job with punishing their boss, who made the rules and then broke them without caring.
evilgenius wrote:They make the rules in concert with each other. No single representative makes them on their own. If a state has a very good representative who looks out for their interests they shouldn't be docked for that, when the pay is attached to how the over all group performs. Sure you can dock everybody's incentive pay, the individual did fail to influence the group so as to bring about a different solution. Docking their regular pay is simply outrageous.
And another thing, why should a balanced budget be the determiner of a job well done? There are emergencies aside from war that the country has to face. The interstate highway system was built in order to ensure that the military could get from one place to another quickly if the Cold War got hot. Those people represented back then would only go for a war footing as reason enough to come up with the money. Today, we probably wouldn't have such a problem. We can see what kind of public good it brings. But, you know what, maybe we couldn't.
Newfie wrote:Since we are floating rule changes I've got another.
Prorate votes by the amount of money spent on each candidate.
So if A spent $1000 to get 1,000 votes and B spent $500 for 1,000 votes then the final tally would be A get 500 votes and B gets 1,000.
It doesn't have to be purely linear maybe a 50% bias. It would help to take money out of the election.
Yeah, I know there would be a whole rule beater industry. Just keep legislating the heater out.
Cog wrote:Obama's political appointees are being made civil service employees. But here is the trick on that. If they require Senate approval, that isn't happening. Also GS employees have a one year probationary period and can be fired for cause. As a manager, I would either come up with a cause or transfer them to Adak, Alaska or some out of my office assignment where they could do no harm.
Plantagenet wrote:The Trump people are floating the idea of cutting government jobs by 10% or so to reduce waste and abuse.
This is a good idea if they get rid of the right people.
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