WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS...

There are certain specific “common sense” demands that CongressAbuse believes should be put to our government. Our goal is to ensure that they are not only responsive to their constituent’s interests but also live in a manner that allows them to understand the real life circumstances of their constituents:

1. Lobbying is illegal, since any lobbyist meets any congressman in private.  The lobbyist is representing only a special interest, by in someway buying the congressperson.  Article 1 of the Constitution states petitioning the government is legal.  Therefore those who hire lobbyists should be made to get their stockholders or association members to sign petitions and only by Americans.  Who knows how many of the members or stockholders are Americans and not foreign interests?   Or how many of the association members or stockholders agree with the proposed legislation and whose money do they use to hire lobbyists?   The congressperson is therefore violating the interest of his/her constituents, who elected them. Read PETITIONING NOT LOBBYING article.

2. A representative’s salary and benefits should not be significantly greater than that earned by their constituents in the general population. As it is now, how can anyone truly represent individuals well below his/her living standards? With the high salaries, including the high benefits all members of Congress earn, there is no way for any representative to understand the problems of the average American.

3. Currently, Congress has a built in salary increase, each and every year. It takes a negative vote in each chamber of the house to stop a yearly increase of their salary. This has gone on for years with only one year missed.

4. A representative should not be entitled to benefits (such as healthcare insurance and pensions) that are more generous than those enjoyed ­ on average - by their constituents.

5. Representatives should only employ a reasonable number of staffers. There are now far more congressional staffers than during World War II, when the need for them was far greater. The explosion in congressional staff has created a massive buffer between representatives and their constituents.

6. An elected representative should not be encouraged to remain in office for as long as he/she chooses, which is in reality the current state of affairs, with an incumbent reelection rate of around 95%. This system denies younger capable citizens to “move up the ladder”, including women and minorities.

7. The members of Congress have limited say in what a piece of legislation contains when approving that final bill.  Any proposed legislation goes to a conference committee to iron out differences after a major bill gets passed in both chambers.  Members of the conference committee are selected from each chamber.  This committee has the full power to add or subtract sections of the bill.  The legislation then goes back to each house for passage as presented.  Most legislation becomes a tyranny by a small group of selected members.

8. “Earmarking” is an underhanded way that members of Congress can get special appropriations for favored individuals or companies. They can attach extra money to appropriation legislation after approval, without approval from the other members of Congress. This can amount to several billions of dollars each year, even though the total budget is in deficit.

9. The Congress today, not unlike many years ago, operates as a tyranny of the majority over the minority - even if it is only with a one-or-two vote majority. How can we have a democracy if the majority of Congress members were never elected by a majority of Americans (voters and non-voters) and runs all over the rest of Americans? All Americans must be considered and represented by all members of Congress, no matter what their political party or whether or not they vote.

10. The American people have a proclivity to be very warlike, though always claiming to be peace loving.  But if anyone looks carefully at the history of the United States, will see the country has had more wars, small or large than most any other country during the time we became an independent country.  Therefore it should be a congress of “ordinary people” who truly represent the people and resist the administrations and other warlike people.  President Eisenhower, a former 5 star general, warned the country against the military industrial complex.  Today that industry has overtaken the country with fears of being under protected.  So Congress has approved military weapons that have absolutely no application to the wars our country now faces.  A prime example is the new A-22 Raptor airplane, costing around one-hundred and seventy million dollars each, originally designed to fight the USSR, which no longer exists.  Yes the Pentagon is ordering hundreds of these planes with Congress approval.

There are obviously additional requirements that CongressAbuse would like to put forward for our elected representatives, but this is certainly a good start.

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