By Isaac Yetiv, Ph.D
LA JOLLA, Calif. — In my
last article, I offered a “simple and fair” solution to the problem of “immigration.” I will attempt to do the same for other difficult issues (the economy, education, entitlements, health care, tax code, national security, foreign policy, US-UN relations.) But before that, it is absolutely essential that we sweep away the obstacles to any formulation, let alone implementation, of any reform by the elected authorities. In the last 60 years, we have, as a nation, developed a few bad habits that make a social and political consensus quasi-impossible, even on non-controversial issues that rally the suffrages of 70-80 % of the people. While remaining within the confines of the US Constitution, we need to level the playing field and restore and consolidate the rules of the game:
Historians date the modern American malaise to a series of events that started in the sixties (the Vietnam debacle, Watergate, the oil embargo, the Mullahs revolution in Iran, the resurgence of Islamic radicalism and terrorism, nine-eleven, our dependence on Mideast oil, our huge trade deficit and our national debt of 14 trillion dollars.) This resulted in fierce partisanship and sharp divisions bordering on hatred among the people, which poisoned the political discourse. The much-vaunted system of checks-and-balances has led to constant gridlock, even to total paralysis. Maybe we cannot cure the disease, but we surely can ameliorate the situation with a number of measures that no citizen in his sane mind (except maybe the beneficiaries of the present disorder) would find objectionable:
1) First and foremost, a balanced budget should be required, by law, at all levels of government (Federal, state. local). Any entity that needs more money to meet its own expenses must , via its own elected officials, face the taxpayers and demand more taxes. This prospect, in itself, would force it to cut its expenses and live within its means. For this idea to work, it is absolutely necessary to separate the levels of government, and no money should be transferred from level to level. Each government collects its own revenues to meet its own needs.
2) Free from the encumbrances to “help” the states, the federal government should limit itself to its “enumerated powers” as delineated in the Constitution, in accordance with the 10 th Amendment. As Henry David Thoreau famously wrote, ” Government governs best that governs least.” It is up to the Legislative power to restore the constitutional “division of labor” which will reduce immensely the federal spending, and as a corollary, the federal taxing and borrowing. Jefferson always preached, though unsuccessfully, that the federal government should be prohibited, by law, from borrowing.
3) This federal government thus constituted will not need a huge and redundant staff. A few years ago, I read that the average Congressperson commanded a staff of …twenty two (!!). This is unconscionable. Besides the huge cost of salaries, benefits, health care,and pensions (which are today bankrupting a few U.S. cities and states), hordes of aides can only make the ship of state
heavier, clumsier, and inefficient. No wonder why they, the staffers, produce two and three thousands of pages of new bills that, admittedly, nobody reads before voting. In Washington D.C. , about 15,000 staff(for all branches) with the “help” of 35,000 lobbyists and 40,000 lawyers (see below) write our laws ; they have produced the 64,000 pages of the tax code which was called “an abomination.” Every year, they add 70,000 pages of “rules” in the Federal Register , and if the Healthcare law is not repealed or amended, they will be augmented with tens of thousands of government functionaries, including 16,000 more IRS agents to police the new law . It is just mind-boggling ! I believe a cut of 50 percent of the staffers will effect huge savings and more efficiency,
4) With the reduction in congressional and presidential staff, and the limitation of the Executive to its enumerated powers, the army of lobbyists in Washington D.C. will dwindle to a skeleton. Their declared mission is to influence the government, both the Legislative and the Executive, i.e. to make them do, through monetary contributions, what is good for their clients, the special interests, which is most often contrary to public interest. These are bribes, purely and simply. And they are legal, accepted and tolerated by the judiciary as “freedom of speech.” As Michael Kinsley correctly lamented, “the scandals in Washington are about what is legal, not what is illegal.” We are governed, in reality, by an oligarchy of non-elected staff and bureaucrats in complicit association with greedy lawyers and lobbyists whose clients, domestic and foreign, often dictate our laws. We have gone very far from the Lincolnian admonition of a government ” of, by, and for the people.”
Since the majority of lobbyists is composed of former high-level officials who lobby their former subordinates, which is the apex of corruption, a moratorium of five to ten years should be imposed by law before they obtain a lobbying license. And a shrinking of the federal government to its constitutionally limited powers will ipso facto shrink the mobs that feed on it. Term limits will also help.
5) Elections, parties, primaries: The Constitution does not require the formation of political parties. It was a fervent wish of George Washington to abolish them. And if it was desirable to do so in his time, a fortiori in ours. We ostensibly vote for one person, but the political machine and the astronomical amounts of money poured into the elections (in 2008 presidential elections , candidate Obama spent close to a billion, and the total costs of all elections reached close to 3 billion) , are the decisive factors, not the experience, character, honesty, leadership qualities, and accomlishments of the candidates.
The parties also sharpen the divisions among the elected officials and the people, and corrupt the decision-making process. Since we must live with them, we should mitigate the damage they cause to the health of our democracy and to the fairness of our electoral system. I suggest the following reforms to be acted upon urgently:
.- Limit the time and money spent in the electoral campaigns, all of them ,at all levels. There is absolutely no valid reason why we start our presidential campaigns two years before election day. Other countries, no less democratic, can do it in 90 days or less. Why rehash and repeat ad nauseam the same sound bites, slogans, and mantras until they lose their acuity and become the object of contempt of the electorate ? This explains the dangerous low participation in the process, and the apathy and sheer cynicism, especially among the young generations.
As for the influence of money in the elections, it is as nefarious as in the lobbying in Washington. I am sorry to strongly disagree with
the opinion of the Supreme Court that spending hundreds of millions is equivalent to “free speech.” Money should be completely out of the electoral process. There are ways to do it fairly and efficiently as some other democracies do it. If a mediocre candidate spends his own millions and defeats an opponent who is clearly more deserving, he has, in my opinion, bought the elections. If two candidates of
equal quality spend equal amounts of money , they could have obtained the same results by spending 10 % of it. Money usually corrupts the process, and We The People settle for less than the best.
These are the main changes I suggest in the rules of the game. They should be initiated by the newly elected House of Representatives and , in my opinion, they will be agreed to by the Senate and the President, because that is the will of the immense majority of the people, as some polls have shown. Other less urgent measures will be offered in my subsequent articles on specific topics of reform.
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Yetiv is a La Jolla- based freelance writer and lecturer on topics of public policy and foreign affairs.