The Career Politician
They Ought to Be Banned
Term limits on the Presidency was a good idea. FDR served almost a full four terms and after him, they put term limits on the President. Why haven’t all legislators had term limits put on their offices?
Term limits don’t benefit their self-interests. Term limiting a President did.
It’s worth noting that the Founders were all classically educated people. They were businesspeople. They were what we would call a “generalist” today.
As time progressed, the elected government became a career. In many cases, it is a family dynasty. Dick Cheney begat Lynn Cheney. John Dingell Sr. begat John Dingell Jr who begat Debbie Dingell.
The other path was to serve as a local politician or state legislator and work your way up the ladder. Hello Dick Durbin. He is a prime example of someone who has done absolutely nothing in the private sector his whole life. But, he’s pretty wealthy. Must be a good saver.
Nancy Pelosi and other politicians are excellent market timers. Amazing what you can do with inside information. Maybe we ought to make trading on it illegal? Oh, wait, it already is for the private sector.
There is a revolving door between K Street and Capitol Hill. Regulators go from regulating industries to serving on the boards or as C-level execs in the firms they just regulated. They wait for a changing of the guard to lather, rinse, repeat the whole cycle. Politicians retire or lose an election and earn millions lobbying. If they can’t earn millions lobbying, they keep running for office until they can. Perpetual candidates that have done nothing in their lives. Hello Beto O’ Rourke and Stacy Abrams. One thing that was interesting about many Trump appointees was that none of them ever really served in the high echelons of government. They came from the private sector.
Andy Kessler wrote a nice piece this morning for the WSJ. Worth reading the whole thing but this quote is great:
I asked the author and economist George Gilder about wealth creation. “Wealth is most essentially knowledge,” Mr. Gilder says. “Let’s face it, the caveman had access to all the materials we have today. Therefore, economic growth is learning, manifested in ‘learning curves’ of collapsing costs driven by markets.” Yet these learning curves get waved away by economists. Mr. Gilder says information, not materials, drives growth: “Crash a car and all its value disappears, though every molecule remains.”
Another paradox is the belief that entrepreneurs like Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg are driven by greed despite capitalism’s charitable characteristics. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, showing her misunderstanding of economics, said in 2020, “No one ever makes a billion dollars. You take a billion dollars.” Have you ever noticed that those who criticize capitalists the most are too lazy to be capitalists?
But, as we have seen with Hunter and “10% for the Big Guy”, politicians make their money using influence.
Victor Davis Hansen writes, Our “elites” in society are not elite at all. They have lived their entire lives building nothing. What they do is get in the way and then siphon off what they can by appearing to “do good”. The Clinton Foundation is a classic example. Is there one achievement it can point to where it created a self-sustaining society? No.
He writes,
The more we gained Silicon Valley billionaires, the more we moved into the world of 1984, merely substituting J. Edgar Hoover’s G-men for woke, suit-and-tied James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Kevin Clinesmith—or legions of nerds with cancel buttons sitting in rows of computer carrels in Menlo Park.
Movers and shakers who operate Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, or GoFundMe are much more devoted to Soviet-style censorship than to the First Amendment. They worry far more over profits rather than over the Uyghurs. And their creed is more McCarthyism than the Sermon on the Mount.
Kessler’s point is well taken, capitalism is the most charitable structure man has ever seen for society.
Think about how many people have been enabled by different software packages and inventions. Think about how much better our quality of life is because of enterprising entrepreneurs. Screw you Barack Obama, they did build that and they thought it up themselves. The government mostly was in the way.
Economist George Gilder correctly points out that entrepreneurs create things that allow us to gain knowledge for ourselves and make better use of our time. It doesn’t seem like it, but time is finite and has its own supply curve.
I think our entire society would be much better off if every single elected office was term-limited. My idea would be three terms for Senators and six for Representatives. That allows them to potentially work with two to three Presidents. Additionally, I would take a machete to the bureaucracy that the legislature overseas and the President appoints people to.
Crushing government power will give entrepreneurs more room to create things that make our lives better. It will also destroy the influence part of the government, and hopefully eliminate the grifters, patronage, and graft.
"Additionally, I would take a machete to the bureaucracy that the legislature overseas and the President appoints people to." Gotta do this first or else the administrative state will just take over. One other thing about Elon Musk. He did an interview with the Babylon Bee and they asked about his money. He explained that at every turn, he put every thing he had into the next thing. No private islands, no hedge funds, no real estate investments. If SpaceX or Tesla goes bankrupt, he will be bankrupt. I was astounded and amazed. He is really remarkable and a great example of what can be achieved.
Of course term limits would be great. It's been talked about forever. I'll disagree with you about 3 terms for senators. That's 18 years. I think they should get a real job after 12.