how to fix the budget cycle
quick monday missive
as it’s obvious at this point that the rival donkey and elephant gangs have zero concern about the fact that there is a country attached to their endlesly rancourous partisan squabble, fiscal responsibility, or pretty much any other form of financial probity.
they fight and war then go get rich together while the rest of us get short shrift.
it has become the wile e coyote and sam sheepdog kabuki disaster.
and this is intolerable.
i have a simple idea:
congress has not managed to pass a budget in 28 years. the last time was 1997.
at this rate, they probably never will again.
it’s been many of the same politicians atop this scrum pretty much all that time.
and it’s obvious this continuing resolution game will keep leading to incredibly disruptive, increasingly stupid outcomes and fuel unaccountable and irrepressible profligacy.
these are the railroad tracks to nation-state scale debtor’s prison.
what was once shameful and a weapon of last resort is now table stakes and they’re going to keep getting worse as the one-upmanship intensifies and the games iterate.
they are not afraid enough to do anything sensible.
and we need real budgets with accountability.
and we cannot do this without the congress critters.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 (Appropriations Clause):
“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law...”
so we need to get them in line.
so let’s add some new rules:
make passing a budget a constitutionally mandated requirement of congress. by september 30th, you have a budget passed. if you fail to do this, all sitting members of congress are forever barred from running for federal office ever again, all political war chests/donation pools are forfeit, and no congress critters get any salary or are allowed to raise any campaign funds for the rest of their tenure.
presidents get a line item veto on all budget bills and can strike specific spending. this can be overridden by a 2/3 vote from each chamber. if the president vetoes the whole budget and a new one is not passed by september 30th, the president has to step down from office, the VP takes over, and the former POTUS may never run for federal office again. this will let presidents pare pork and make the congresscrowd larding us up with it stand and fight for it directly but not let them act like fools.
term limits for congress. 2 for senate, 4 for house. that’s it and that’s all. these should not be jobs for life and the we need new blood, not the same ancient blood feuds.
balanced budget amendment. i’m tired of hearing about “we need latitude for stimulus.” no, you don’t. we’re $2 trillion a year in the red and rising with $40tn of debt on the books and $200 trillion of unfunded liabilities. latitude is the last thing you weapons-grade muppets need. you need the keys taken away and a “balance or get fired” mandate.
ban stock trading for congresspeople. the current congressional exemption to insider rules is an affront and abused to the point of mayhem. it attracts the worst possible people and is grossly unfair. all congress-family assets go into conservatorship or index funds. it’s not needed for the budget, but it’s so egregious that we should include it. stop making the capitol a rigged casino where elected officials are the house. the tone that sets is just hideous.
the definition of insanity (and also possible inanity) is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.
and this has become insanely innane.
and it will never change unless a price is attached to this behavior.
we the people should not have to put up with the congress crisis committee and its bottomless bag of high-cost mess and pork trading while the goons who do this trade zero-day options and outperform buffett because buying calls on companies you’re about to subsidize is a great gag.
their job is to be good stewards of our money and nation.
pass a balanced budget on time or you’re done here.
let’s see how quickly they can find things to cut.
we just need to make the proposition utterly simple:
Gato, any term limits must include provisions that cover staff. Unelected Capitol Hill lifers already have way too much power. Term limits would just grow the legislative deep state.
Preaching to the choir there, but yeah.