Well Congress is back from their 6 week vacation.

[slater71]

Just got back and announced that they have only 40 more in session days left till the end of the year. When do you think the people will get tired of this shit.? How about pay Congress for the days they are in session. They do this in Florida. How about no health insurance for life. How about a pension based on number of years in service. No more full pensions. How about term limits. Two terms just like the president.

[kentuck]

1. That's a lot to ask!

[stonecutter357]

2. Donald Trump is a racist pig !

[Newest Reality]

3. For what reason

should we get the kind of perks they do?

Rather than being humble servants of the people, at this point they seem to be far more deserving than their underlings, ah, us.

I do realize that they may be rather active in their constituencies and busy on the breaks, but the package they get to "govern us" is certainly above par for far too many Americans these days. The logic might be that this makes them less prone to corruption and who wants a legislator who has to bum change, but I am talking about contrast and effectiveness.

What do we get in return vs. those that already have?

[Thomas Hurt]

4. I imagine they were working really hard at taking money from lobbyists and corps.

[lunasun]

5. F Trump

[Hermit-The-Prog]

6. compensation to member of Congress shall be 1.5 x avg of constituents

Value to include salary + non-monetary benefits,
compensation not to be altered during elected term

[StarfishSaver]

7. Term limits?

Yes, I want a bunch of know nothings with no experience or knowledge running the legislative branch. No thank you.

Also, recess isn't vacation.

This kind of argument only feeds into the misguided "they're all lazy crooks who don't work as hard as REAL Americans and anybody could do their job so let's let just anybody do it" anti-government hysteria that has led to the Tea Party and Trumpism.

Again, no thank you.

[Hortensis]

8. How about we pass our giant Democratic anti-corruption bill, with public

funding of elections and massive election and voter protection reforms? Just as a start.

Term limits are problematic. These people have come to like their jobs way too much for our good, and they're also often desperately hard to get and hold into, a combination that encourages dropping standards to be able to stay in the center of power. Conservatives especially (overwhelmingly Republicans -- this is proven over several decades) are entering office not to serve a federal government they don't believe in but to serve their donors and then move on and monetize.

We absolutely need to make the opportunity to serve one's nation the biggest appeal and to eliminate those means of corruption that can be legislated away, very much including the ability to monetize connections very limited -- SEE ABOVE: We send HB-1, The For the People Act, to a Democratic-controlled senate and pass it and other laws to fix this.

That said, this is no more a job for amateurs -- who if allowed only two years would be kicked out just when they've started developing some limited competence -- than any very high-skill profession is. Severe term limits actually encourage corruption in a number of ways, including by pitting puppies up against professional wolves.

But just imagine if, for instance, it was illegal for people leaving government to be part of an influence operation for long enough that the connections made in office were stale and often even dead? Citizen's United can't be legislated dead, but its influence can be badly crippled. Between our house's HB-1 and the senate bills written and waiting for reconciliation, it'll be done as soon as we can manage it.

That's of course the kicker. Liberal Democratic politicians tend to fight FOR because liberals tend to believe in liberal democratic government for good. Republicans are determined to defeat it because this corrupted crop's ideology is to defeat liberal government for good. And those have also been proven in many professional studies. It's not like corrupt media are the only ones reporting.

Democrats are the good guys.

[Bettie]

10. Public funding of elections would take

a lot of the corruption out and make it so that in most districts you wouldn't need to be independently wealthy to run for congress.

Though, just this weekend, someone I've known for years was arguing that only rich people SHOULD be in congress because they "know how to make money". FFS.

[Hortensis]

11. Lol. Must have seen Hamilton. Between internet small-donor

funding, which already is a grave threat to control by wealth, public funding, and a number of practical anti-corruption laws, a good part of it will be accomplished until we can repeal Citizens.

Better yet, though, voters can slice and dice the new centimillionaire and billionaires classes and make even their hard-core RWers wish they hadn't been so fatally greedy. Like our grandparents' generations did in their time. We almost got to it that job in 2017.

We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi quoting Justice Louis Brandeis in her address to the nation at the opening the 116th congress. She knows what we'll do with power, just as we all know what Republicans are doing with it.

[Kingofalldems]

9. You must mean the Senate.

[maxsolomon]

12. Whatever.

Sell these term limit/gubmint-is-the-problem grievances elsewhere. It wasn't fresh when Newt Gingrich peddled it.

Florida is no paradigm for good government.

[flotsam]

13. Lotta right wing tropes there

How about no health insurance for life. How about a pension based on number of years in service.

Actually: https://perry.house.gov/how-can-scott-help/myths-about-congress.htm