The Answer is a Constitutional Convention...

The question is, “How can we make congress responsive to the public it is supposed to serve?” In their first hand knowledge of tyranny, our founding fathers saw the probability that someday the people of our nation would need to change their government. They were very aware that greed and corruption would inevitably overpower our elected officials to such an extent they would be powerless to clean stop its spread, even if they wanted to. We have now reached that point.  

Congressmen and women can’t change because they don’t want to change. They can raise their salaries any time they want by any amount they want. They can change their retirement any time they want by any amount they want. They do not feel the pain of the average citizen struggling to make ends meet because they have exempted themselves from things like Social Security and Medicare. By trading on insider information gained in their everyday governing duties, many of them have made millions of dollars. By knowing what businesses will benefit from a particular piece of legislation, they invest in those businesses and make tens of thousands of dollars when the legislation becomes law.

Congress regularly engages in theft. For years it has been the common practice of congress to gather support for reelection by promising to take money from those who work and produce wealth and give it to those whose only job is to vote for any congressman who will promise them free government money. If you think welfare recipients are the only beneficiaries of congress’ redistribution of wealth, you are mistaken. Billions of dollars of subsidies are funneled into the pockets of farmers, oil companies, bankers, and others in good stead with members of congress. It has been said that power is the drug of choice in Washington D.C. That power is regularly used to help congress achieve the only 2 real goals they have – get elected and stay elected. This use (or more correctly - abuse) of power has created a situation where now congress has 14 members with a total of 589 years of service, ranging from 37 to 57 years each. And the sad thing is they have no intention of retiring. They will stay in office well into their 90s as others before them have done (Green and Byrd for example).

Change will only come about when the people rise up against the fiscal tyranny being practiced by our government. We need a peaceful, legal revolution to cause the change that congress cannot or will not bring about. Thanks to the wisdom and foresight of our Founding Fathers, we have the instrument of such a revolution – a Constitutional Convention. It is not easily accomplished, and was never intended to be easy. It can be accomplished only by a massive effort by a nation of citizens determined to take back control of their government. But it can be done. A Constitutional Convention must have a reason. What shall the new law of the land be? The objectives should be simple – like these:

1. Term of office – A Representatives’ term of office is changed to 3 years
2. Term Limits – Senators and Representatives are limited to one term in office - lifetime total
3. Salary – Congress salaries are limited to twice the national average income as adjusted each year
4. Benefits – No member of congress shall have any benefits except those available to every citizen
5. Campaign finance – Only individuals may contribute to campaigns - and only their own money
6. Campaign taxes – Campaign contributions are taxed at one dollar tax for every dollar contributed
7. Lobbying – All lobbying costs are taxed at one dollar tax for every dollar of lobbying expense  

Our representative form of government needs to be repaired. It can be done. It must be done. Think about it - talk about it – but do it. Call a Constitutional Convention and fix it.

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