#1) As Mark commented, decreasing the size of the House will increase the relative power of each Representative, giving smaller states a disproportionate amount of power (much as they already have in the Senate). I’d back this idea, IF it included a provision to determine congressional districts without considering state boundaries. That way, if a state has less than 1/290th of the country’s population, we include part of a neighboring state in their district. ‘You don’t have at least one million people, North Dakota? Fine, now your Congressman also represents part of South Dakota.’ It’ll keep small states from having too much power, and also decrease the number of Representatives only concerned about one state.

#2) Hear, hear! Term limits are about the best idea I can think of to decrease Congressional abuses. Just one note: are you suggesting we increase House terms to four years from the current two? Or was that a transposition error in your writing?

#5) Removing Lobbying is definitely a good idea; I would go a step further and advocate switching to a purely public financed system for campaigns. The more we can remove the influence of money (from ANY group, unions, corporations, PACs, etc.) from public policy, the better.

#8) I love the idea of a balanced budget rule. Here’s a few points I would add:

-A provision to pay off 4-5% of the starting national debt each year, on top of balancing the budget. While a balanced budget is a good start, becoming truly debt free as a nation requires that we chip away at the rising specter of national debt. Paying off 4% a year will not add too much of a burden to the budget, while still leaving us debt-free in twenty-five years.
-Any added spending not offset with a spending cut in the budget = automatic tax hike (distributed across all income brackets according to an agreed upon ratio). Besides being one way to ensure the budget is balanced, this will also help politicians to remember: increasing spending leads to higher taxes, sooner or later (or in this scenario, immediately). Unless the bill provides that the spending be offset by say, increasing the capital gains tax or some other alternate tax, the increase will applied to the income tax across all income brackets.
-Calculate the tax increase for the median taxpayer. We’ve become inured to the million, billion, trillion numbers thrown out during budgetary and other spending bills, so let’s break it down to a more understandable level. If the cost to fix health care (for example) is expressed as a tax increase of $1000 for our median taxpayer (who makes about $50,000, I believe), that’s a much more understandable number for the average tax payer than a cost of $750 million (and again, I’m pulling these numbers out of the air, so don’t criticize too harshly). We could even go a step further and break down the increase for the median person in every income quintile (or decile, if you prefer); that way, everyone can see where their income falls and determine (approximately) how much the new spending will increase their taxes. (Of course, we can do the same in reverse: if people can see how much cutting the budget for the Pentagon by 10%, let’s say, could save them in tax money, you’ll likely get fewer complaints when such a cut is proposed by congress.)

#9) The idea of limiting proposals that increase spending to the budget is a good one, but I think we will need to change the amount of spending more than once a year. Make the budget a quarterly process, and it’ll be easier to shift spending in the directions it should be going. (Plus, if Congress is now unable to pass bills that mandate new spending, they should have much more time to work on the budget, anyway.)

#10) Shenanigans sounds interesting, but like you said, it seems hard to enforce. What constitutes a successful challenge? What happens to the challenged Congressperson when he or she loses the challenge? Who determines whether the challenger or the challenged has ‘won’ the challenge? (If it’s determined by the Speaker, let’s say, the minority party will never win a challenge, I’d bet.) Does that limit of one challenge per session (assuming you lose) apply to one ‘Shenanigan’ call per caller? And those are just from the top of my mind.

A more reasonable idea might be to take a paper from Scott Adams, who proposed allowing a two thirds majority of states to remove anyone from a nationally elected position, regardless of what state they represent. That way, politicians who have succeeded more by directing the flow of pork to their constituents than by keeping costs low will have to worry that the rest of the country will get fed up with them and toss them out on their ears.

There you go, a few of my thoughts to go with your good suggestions. Keep it up!
.-= Roger´s last blog ..Things I Will NOT Do For Money =-.

That idea is a non-starter. It has nothing to do with salaries or efficient in legislating.

However, ending gerrymandering is necessary.

#4) Supreme court is supposed to be non-political, but we know how each and every just will vote almost all the time. That’s political.

Non-lifetime has merit. Doubt it can ever be otherwise. A shame.

#5) Lobbying is nothing short of legalized bribery. It must be outlawed in its present form. But those who get to vote will never pass it.

I don’t mind a ‘lobby’ that presents a position paper, but the bonuses that come along with that are the real problem.

#6) It’s one thing to take the very conservative view of abandoning social programs, but it’s another to forget how they work. Seniors had money removed from paychecks for 40 years. You cannot simply take away the benefits. If you do that, then it must be equally right to take away all pensions. Is that your plan? Is that fair?

Programs can be fixed if the special interests could be blocked. Medicare can be made much less costly and much more efficient. to me, anyone who commits fraud in Medicare is stealing from everyone. That should be mandatory life sentence with no alternatives.

Big Pharma can be less greedy.
If we prevented lawsuits over every death, we could have medical decisions based on need, and not on the doctor’s fear of being sued.

The are better answers than cancellation

Agree. No amendments to any bill – iunlss it’s directly related to the bill.
.-= Mark Wolfinger´s last blog ..Financial Planners. How do they survive? =-.