Vote Out Incumbents Democracy

What this means is, 49 state's taxpayers will pay 26.5 Billion more in taxes just so their state could get a few Million for a new Rain Forest exhibit.

And this goes on year after year, decade after decade. Folks, your paying out for pork in 49 other states just to get a little pork for your state. This is like buying lunch for the 49 other people in the cafe' so you won't feel guilty about eating lunch yourself.

In other words, for a $10 lunch, you are paying a $500 tab. No surprise our national debt is on track for 10+ Trillion Dollars by 2008.

Sorry, folks, my 15 year old daughter wants this to stop while she still has hopes of bringing home some of her paycheck for herself.

Just look at this crap.

If that doesn't make you mad, nothing will.

This pork-barrel is not just fiscally irresponsible.
It endangers our troops when money is spent on crap, instead of body armor and medical care for troops.

This pork-barrel is mostly corporate welfare. It is graft. It is wasteful, and it is threatening the future and security of the nation. It is also bankrupting the nation. Heaping massive debt onto our children and future generations is immoral.

We need ONE PURPOSE PER BILL to help put a stop to this crap.

ONE PURPOSE PER BILL: Start simplifying government by allowing ONLY ONE purpose per bill (i.e. only one or more items that are necessary for the one purpose of the one bill). This will cut out the pork-barrel and graft that sneak into huge bills, in which pork-barrel consisting of numerous unrelated items is hidden within thousands of pages that few (if anyone, much less voters) reads or scrutinizes. This will allow voters to easily see how politicians voted. This will increase transparency, which will lead to more accountability, and responsibility. Currently, it's nearly impossible to know why a politician voted for or against a bill. Perhaps, this lack-of-transparency is by design? It's certainly become a popular vehicle for hiding excessive pork-barrel, graft, bribes, and waste.

Then, we need CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM. Our government is FOR SALE. There is no accountability, because, even if they get caught, they get a presidential pardon. So, they are unaccountable. So, why be responsible?

We need reform, but government won't do it voluntarily.

The voters must use peaceful force to get their attention, and give them a To-Do-List, and vote them out and start recalls, and do it repeatedly, until incumbents get the message, and pass some of these simple reforms to make government more transparent, accountable, and responsible.

An incumbent often attaches one or more of these earmarks during the course of a bills negotiations? Currently there is no Bill negotiation. These fiscal "earmarks" and even more damaging procedural changes are added in conference (negotiations between the senate and the house)in the middle of the night. Senator Stevens (R-Alaska) had the balls to add Anwar drilling to a must pass defense bill at 01:45 hours on 12-21-05 (while our country has troops in harms way). The ANWAR provision was stricken but several riders such as; exemptions for pharmaceutical company lawsuits, hurricane katrina sole source funding, etc were left in. The term Pork sounds harmless to the politically UN-engaged but if you examine the way "bills" are added onto these days in Washington it is not only wasteful, shameful, but is actually threatening the basic tenets of our democracy.

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John wrote:
it is not only wasteful, shameful, but is actually threatening the basic tenets of our democracy.
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True. Pork-barrel isn't just irresponsible.
It endangers lives.

How dare this crap take place when our troops are risking life and limb?

ONE PURPOSE PER BILL would give us the much needed transparency to stop most of this pork-barrel, because the voters would then be able to see exactly who voted for or against a BILL. The incumbents would no longer be able to hide the reasons for voting for or against a BILL with ONLY ONE PURPOSE.

Currently, no one can know why anyone voted for or against a 10,000 page bill of mostly unrelated items.
In fact, many congress persons admit to never even reading the BILLs.

Hence, those huge 10,000 page BILLs are full of pork-barrel, graft, bribes, and corporate welfare.

Transparency has been lost.
ONE PURPOSE PER BILL will restore it.
Then, many other such common-sense, no-brainer simplifications could be made to abused procedures, rules, and processes.
Transparency discourages corruption. Transparency is needed first to know who is responsible, and who is not.

Then law enforcement is needed to hold law breakers accountable. That is the 2nd thing that is needed.

Only then, will we have transparent, accountable, and responsible government.

As it is now, politicians can break the law, and even if they plead guilty or get convicted, they can get a presidential pardon (like the pardons Clinton granted to 140 convicted felons, including Dan Rostenkowski, who pled guilty).

When the government is above the law, there is no law. When that happens, the people should be very concerned.

$19 million to study cow farts? All they have to do is ask and I can tell them they stink.
I don't blame your daughter David. I'd like to see in end before she starts drawing a pay check too. At the rate it's going neither her or my grandkids will be able to afford to breath. Much less afford such luxuries as food, clothes, and housing.

Talk about the need to get incumbents out and challengers in. Here's an eye opener for you;

Stevens (Alaska) 361/2 years
Inoute (Hawaii) 421/2 years
Kennedy (Mass) 421/2 years
Byrd (W.VA) 461/2 years

If they can't get it right with guys with this amount of service, its time for a change.

Yes, we need a change.
Vote out incumbents over and over until they agree to pass some no-brainer laws and amendments to make government more transparent, accountable, and responsible.

If only they would do one thing, we could get rid of 100s of billions in waste, graft, pork-barrel, and corporate welfare.

ONE PURPOSE PER BILL.

That one thing would help a lot, because politicians and the president would no longer be able to obscure their reasons for voting for or against a BILL.

But, unfortunately, incumbents create BILLs consisting of tens of thousands of pages, that no one reads completely, consisting of numerous unrelated items, packed with pork-barrel, waste, graft, and corporate welfare. No one (by design) can know why anyone voted for or against a BILL.

Such a change would increase transparency, which is why politicians oppose it.

Many other such changes would increase transparency. But politicians oppose all such no-brainer, common-sense suggestions, because they are dishonest.

Voters must demand Congress to do these no-brainer, common-sense things, or be voted out (or recalled).

Only the voters can change it, because government won't ever reform itself.

Voters can do it with nothing more than their vote. Simply do the most simple, peaceful, safe, and responsible thing to restore a balance of power (not merely shift it or strip government of all power to accomplish anything) between government and the people, and peacefully force government to be accountable and responsible too.

All voters have to do is the one, simple, peaceful, responsible thing they should have been doing all along. Vote out irresponsible incumbents. Not just once, but repeatedly, until they get the picture. That's the whole point behind voting. Voters are supposed to vote out irresponsible incumbents. Voters are supposed to fire them if they are irresponsible.

And, 99% of them are too irresponsible and unaccountable. They all vote on pork-barrel, take money from big-money-donors, spend too much time building up their campaign war-chests, too much time ignoring the nations pressing problems, and they all look the other way.

Hence, none of the incumbents deserve to stay in their cu$hy, coveted seats, and that unfortunately is they price they should pay for looking the other way.