Elected officials expenses

My simple one sentence solution:

"The constituents who elect an individual are responsible for any and all expenses incurred by that individual, to include health care, travel, retirement, food, lodging, and entertainment.



The above is the canned response I have to an eMail I receive about once a week complaining about Senators and Congressmen jetting around the world on the taxpayer dime.

So for example if California's 8th congressional district is happy with the job that madam Speaker Pelosi is performing, and they don't feel as though the expenses she in incurring (such as personal use of a Boeing 757) are out of line they will re-elect her, and the people who did not elect her do not have to carry the burden.  If they do not however feel that the expense justifies the results the problem would resolve itself in the subsequent election (by means of her constituents voting in someone else).

The only downfall I can see is that we might see a staggering turnover rate in the upper positions of the House of Representatives and Senate, as these positions might require more travel and higher security. However, that cloud has a silver lining as well... turnover in Government is a good thing in my opinion.

Election time - What I want to hear.

   So it's election time and, as usual, most of what I hear on the news and from viral eMail is about how the other guy is wrong. 

   Of course they are.  I don't know about everyone else but for years now I've felt like I was always voting for the lesser of two evils.  I haven't felt like we've had a presidential candidate that I really thought would do a good job (as opposed to they guy who got in because he knew the right people) since Ross Perot ran.

So here's what I'd like to hear a candidate say. 

1.  "It's none of the Federal Government's business" - You might have read my previous post on gun control... basically it's none of the government's business.  I think this can be applied to 90% of the "hot button" topics.  Gay Marriage is a good thing to the people in a mostly gay community, and if God really is mad about it I think he can arrange it to stop like he did with Sodom and Gomorrah, so lets stop wasting time debating about it and let the local communities decide.  That list can be long and boring, the war on drugs, gun control, gay marriage, etc.  Legislating morality is Fascism.

2.  "The government can't fix the private sector it can only make policy that helps or hurts the private sector."  - I've heard statistics that say as much as 60% of the people employed in America are employed by small business.  That sounds pretty astounding, but if you think about it Wal-Mart is the nations largest private employer and they only employ 2.1 million people, that sounds like a lot but it's less than 1% ( .67% ) and it's the exception in large companies, not the rule, IBM is next in line with 436,000 employees.  My point is that the typical politician listens to the people who support him and these large companies have a loud voice, but making policy that has the net effect of helping less than 1% of the population (less if you consider that these large companies have a tendency to highly compensate their executives and have a workforce that can barely make ends meet) is ludicrous, we need policy that creates an environment for all businesses to survive not just the ones that are "too big to fail" (which in my opinion means that they should be looked at with anti-trust in mind).

3.  "If we balance the budget first, then pay off the national debt, eventually we can lower taxes." - This nauseates me every year... what the candidates typically say is "we need to lower taxes for <blank>" (the candidate is always in favor of lowering taxes for somebody depending on party affiliation) but then they turn around and talk about how they're going to spend more money.  This is like a household where the husband and wife decide to buy the car that they can't afford for her if they buy the boat that they can't afford for him.