Shifting Incentives in Congress
So, I saw this being reposted Facebook. I’ve edited it a bit to make it feel like less of a chain letter (it used to ask you to pass it on to 20 people, etc etc) but there’s an interesting idea here.
In an interview on CNBC, Warren Buffett says, ”I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.”
The Facebook post then went on to describe other laws that came to be rather quickly:
The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971…before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc. Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land…all because of public pressure.
It then offered this plan, which is not Buffett’s (I assume - as the CNBC article does not mention any of the below) but it’s interesting. It’s as follows:
Congressional Reform Act of 2011
- No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
- Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.
- Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
- Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
- Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
- Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
- All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term’s, then go home and back to work.
It’s intereting in that it completely re-works the incentives for congresspersons. To me, it feels like a pretty smart move in order to protect the people and improve our government. It might also inspire more people to run for government since it will feel less like an old boy’s club. I might also add that no government official should receive compensation of any kind from any corporation - and all incentives during and after their tenure for up to 10 years should be audited to guarantee it (or some other way of guaranteeing it). Also, I’d probably adopt something like this for all of government - not just congress.
The CNBC article than had an update:
UPDATE: An attorney in St. Louis, Jarrad Holst, points out by email that there is a way to enact Buffett’s idea without the cooperation of Congress. Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, a “Convention for proposing Amendments” is convened when called for by the legislatures of two-thirds of the states. A proposed amendment would then need to be ratified by the legislatures of three-quarters of the states. If that happens, and it is a very, very big if, Buffett’s deficit plan would become the law of the land. That process would, however, take more than five minutes.
Obviously there’s more to be done but it seems really intriguing. I also wonder if the Occupy Wall Street movement could be energized to make something like the above happen? Or another movement altogether?
What are your thoughts?
