Term Limits Proposal

Until recently, I was not a proponent of term limits.  My reasoning was that the American people should be able to choose anyone they want to represent them, as many times as they would like.  I must now admit that I believe completely the opposite:   not only should there be term limits, but there should be only one term of office to each elected representative in the federal government.  I think one two-year term for the House and Senate would be adequate, and one four-year term for a Presidential administration. Here are a few reasons why....

• Seniority carries far too much weight in Congress and has contributed to the massive spending that threatens to destroy our economy.  The late Senator Byrd is an excellent example.  He built up his own power in the Senate through seniority, used that seniority to spend an unholy amount of taxpayer dollars on West Virginia, and in return, West Virginia continued to return him to the Senate because of his seniority until he died in office.  The United States has suffered because of the seniority system in Congress.
• Incumbents spend the final two years of their terms running for re-election, and they do it on the taxpayers dime without doing the jobs they were elected and paid to do.  In the House, members are elected to two year terms and never stop fundraising or campaigning.  Others use the comfort of their office and federal paycheck to run for other offices without doing the job they were elected to do in the first place.  Both Obama and McCain did this.  If there were no re-election campaigns, elected officials would be forced to do their jobs and be more likely to avoid corruption that comes with fundraising and trying to hold power.  
• One term of office would attract better candidates.  The type of people that would run for Congress would more likely be people with more real-life, business experience because they wouldn't be career politicians.  People who would be willing to take a respite from their careers to represent the people are more likely to do so because of their desire to serve or create change rather than trying to make a career of politics.  We saw many people elected like this in 2010, but having no re-elections would encourage more of this type of American service rather than self-service.       
• In a nation of this size, there is no reason that capable people cannot be found to run for office every few years.  If a state elects a Senator to one term and they really like what the Senator did, they'll look for a like-minded candidate as a replacement, and have no trouble finding one.  
• This kind of turnover in the Executive and Legislative Branches would also help weed out more of the leeches in the federal bureaucracy, like Congressional staffers and some of the permanent pinheads in the cabinet departments.  

The case for term limits

This would not solve every problem in government, obviously, as there will always be bad people looking to corrupt the system in pursuit of power.  But limiting elected officials to one term would create a better atmosphere to maintain good government.  Unfortunately, the American people are as much to blame for this system as the career politicians who have corrupted it, but I think if this proposal were put to a vote of the people it would do very well.  Of course, to change the Constitution would require the support of the very problems that a new amendment would be seeking to remedy.  But term limits are now something that we the American people need to have a serious dialogue about.