When was the last time you heard a professional politician make sense? Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee said over the weekend in an interview there should be term limits “for bureaucrats.” The comments were made in an appearance with Steve Hilton on Fox News’ “The Next Revolution.”
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The civil service has become highly problematic.
She was correct in observing,
“Big Business, Big Government, Big Tech, Big Media — they all go hand in hand, and they’re all a part of the D.C. swamp…” During the Trump Presidency Americans found out “just how murky the swamp is… I have said for a long time — we need to have term limits for bureaucrats because they are the ones that dig in… they won’t leave… and they never modernize… They don’t use technology… They always demand more money… They never get a pay cut… They are always getting pay raises… so we need to have term limits for bureaucrats.”
Term limits are a large part of what drains the swamp in D.C. President Trump’s inability to succeed in tackling that campaign promise likely cost him his second term. Candidate Trump in 2016 announced how he intended to “drain the swamp.” He specifically cited corrupt politicians on both sides of the aisle in Congress. He included implementing term limits.
Then-candidate Trump vowed; if he were to win against Hillary Clinton, he “will push for a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress.” Time Magazine fretted at the time that Trump’s proposed term limits would “eliminate half of Congress.” You can be the judge whether you think term limits would be a good thing for America.
Not tackling that campaign promise isn’t entirely the President’s fault. Getting a constitutional amendment to impose term limits would have required two-thirds support from the very people you’re trying to remove.
Trump wasn’t the first person to come up with the idea. In 1995, former Speaker Newt Gingrich proposed a limit of 12 total years for congressional terms.
Senator Dianne Feinstein is a good example of the utility of congressional term limits. Feinstein, according to a report by the New Yorker, has been “seriously struggling” with cognitive decline. The report outlined how the 87-year-old senator “often forgets she has been briefed on a topic, accusing her staff of failing to do so just after they have.” The question is why are voters not doing their jobs?
She frequently does things like repeating the same question at a Congressional hearing twice, word-for-word. This past summer, in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, she praised China as a “respectable nation.” She said allowing Americans to sue the communist nation over the coronavirus would be a “huge mistake.”
A recent Gallup poll asks Americans to rank the honesty and ethics of different professions. Respondents placed members of Congress on par with car salesmen. Congressional members actually tied car salespeople with 8% of people rating them positively on honesty and ethics.