Rick Perry’s poll numbers have been slipping by the day, so he needed a bold, last-ditch proposal to stay in the race. And during his “Uproot and Overhaul Washington” speech today, he laid out several:
1. End lifetime appointments for federal judges.
2. Cut congressional pay, working hours and office budgets in half. Freeze congressional and agency salaries until budget is balanced.
3. End bank bailouts and earmarks.
4. Reduce spending to 18 percent of GDP.
5. Advocate for Balanced Budget Amendment.
6. Privatize Fannie and Freddie.
7. Get rid of Commerce, Energy and Department of Education. Restructure Dept. of Homeland Security. Hand over airport security to the private sector.
8. Moratorium on every pending federal regulation, and full audit of the last five years of new regulations.
We’ve heard many of these from Perry before, but it’s his proposal to create a “part-time Congress” that’s been getting the most attention today:
We send members of Congress to look out for America, not enrich themselves. But too often, they are taken captive by the Washington culture.
That’s why we need a part-time Congress. I say send them home to live under the laws they pass among the people they represent.
That would mean slashing the annual salary to $87,000, and cutting the number of days Congress is in session to just 62 per year. Why again does Perry think this is a good idea? And doesn’t he need Congress around to pass his other proposals, like installing a balanced budget amendment and capping spending at 18 percent of GDP?
We already have a method for making sure members of Congress look out for our interests, and it’s called elections. If the point is to reduce corruption, a part-time Congress wouldn’t have prevented the insider trading issues that Perry mentioned in his speech. A better (and much simpler) idea would be to enforce stricter rules on congressional trading.
Plus, like some of Perry’s other proposals – i.e., eliminating the Department of Education – there is almost no chance of this ever actually happening. He would have done better to steer clear of gimmicks.
We already have a part-time Congress in terms of actual days worked, and they still do nothing except gridlock each other. n nPlus, read the Constitution Article 2, Section 3. nI just read the parts of Perry's plan that were of interest, re-organizing the Executive bureaucracy, and most of what I read made perfect sense. I had made my own study of the cabinet/agency structure in 2008 when I was wondering who would be good fits for Cabinet Secretaries. n nand I am still a registered totally disillusioned democrat who wonders why Commentary is so condescending in bashing Perry. n n
Actually, this could be one of the smarter proposals made by any candidate in recent memory, although it is totally impractical and will never happen. There is no particular reason why Congressional business cannot be conducted and completed in a few months of concentrated work. There is also no particular reason why Members could not accomplish all of their public work with half the staffs they now have (in their DC and district offices and on committees). Most of what members and their staffs do is political, endless campaigning for reelection, in effect. A part-time Congress would go a long way toward eliminating careerism and cozy ties to the permanent K Street establishment. Suggesting that corruption and what not would still be a problem is true, of course, but it is not as if a "full-time" Congress has a better record. n nWhile we're at it, it is time to make some major cuts in the Executive Office of the President, which now reportedly has more than one thousand employees, hundreds earning more than $100,000 a year. FDR managed to lead the country through the Depression and the World War with a comparative handful. n nAnd rather than eliminate departments and agencies (which also is never going to happen), we should take an axe to the upper levels of the bureaucracy in every agency. Let's pay attention to such questions as why we need separate Departments of the Army, Navy and Air Force 60 years after creation of the DoD and decades after the military services actually began to work in synch. These "departments" were retained originally as a sop to the then-competitive services. They do nothing now but supply hifalutin jobs to White House favorites n nIf we do eliminate agencies wholesale, high on the list should be the Department of Homeland Security which was a typical pointless politician's "fix" for the pre-9/11 mistakes. All that has been achieved is the creation of a thick new layer of bureaucracy on top of agencies like the Coast Guard and Customs that continue to operate just as they did before. n n nIf we do eliminate whole agencies, one place to start is
Well, they are part of the government and the government gets plugged into the structures of private capital and log rolling is endemic not to mention the magical thinking you get from vote-chasing popularly elected clowns. Democracy: can't live without it, can't live with the bees in your head. imo a good constitutional amendment would be the Better Organization through Zero-tolerant Optimization approach (BOZO). You are free to keep coming back to the trough but after your first term of office you have to wear big floppy shoes. After three, the squeezable nose. After three, trade in that government limo for a super compact, uncomfortably carpooling six.
Since civics is no longer required middle-school curriculum in more than half (factcheck needed) the states, Perry's proposal, at minimum, should be stimulating the entire country to finally think, and discuss, the structure of Federal government. n nGov. Perry is very Jeffersonian in his proposal. Too bad the punditry thinks so little of him. I am beginning to truly understand the mistrust of all media, mainstream to online.
Challenging sacred cows and inertia is not a gimmick.