A Plan for Congress

I lifted this from a comment by emom58 on a Huffington Post article about the Republican's current attack on the budget soon-to-be-in-crisis:

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. No Tenure / No Pension.
A Congressma­n collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

2. 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.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressio­nal pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participat­es in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

7. 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.

This is something that has struck a chord with me for a long, long time but it gets buried every time more important things come up.  The capitol fairy dust settles just long enough every so often and we can see the problem caused by congress not playing by the rules we all have to.  This part of the system is so broken we would need a National Referendum to make it happen.  We cannot really do THAT until we strike corporate person-hood.  Monied interests would pound us with national ad campaigns to prevent this from becoming law.  Perhaps we DO NEED a National Referendum system to break the back of the Washington D.C. crowds lack of response to real problems of the country.  

While it is clearly Republicans who are posturing with their tired and dis-proven theories, holding us all hostage in the meantime, there is little the individual can do because they (the elected) persist and do not listen to their constituents.  I have written and protested outside the office of Jaime Herrera Beutler's office in Vancouver to say that her Tea Party aligned votes are a Bad thing.  Her automated response has completely ignored any of the points brought to her.  Her votes speak volumes however.  There are polls that show with crystal clarity that she is in opposition to her constituents but she ignores all that.  She will not meet with us and does not hold town hall meetings to give voice to us.  It is We the People that count not our representatives, especially when they do not represent.