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Health & Fitness

Should all political offices be held to 2 terms?

I had  thought the other day that the only nationally elected official, who is limited by term limits, is the President of the United States. That precedent was established by George Washington, and was limited to 2 terms. The only exception was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who by sheer political savvy, was able to hold 4 terms in office, although I would say, World War II was a small matter that needed to be taken care of and Roosevelt felt as he said in his  run for a fourth term, “ Don’t change horses in the middle of the stream!” We are now limited in the number of terms to 2 by Constitutional Amendment. Then I thought, what if all federal elected officials were limited in the time they held office? Would this bring people to the front who went to Congress like James Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and saw and felt the corruption 60 or 70 years ago. In that movie the good guy, Stewart, wins in the end but this is not Hollywood. Check out the movie it will make you realize,nothing’s changed.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         As we all understand, the United States Congress has a lower public approval rating than North Korea. (You can look it up.) We are all agreed that MONEY is what gets people elected and being the wealthiest person in the race or the one with the biggest donors, will be elected 94% of the time, (again you can look it up.) Yet, even though Congress has a disapproval rating in the high 90%, the majority of voters think that their representative, whether in the Senate or in the House of Representatives are doing a great job. Something is wrong with this picture. Congress persons serve two year terms while Senate representatives serve 6 year terms. I feel that senators should also be limited to 2 terms, and congress persons should be limited to 4 terms. The thing that has the biggest influence on Congress, the money, which is needed to finance their next campaign and the one after that and the one after that, is provided through lobbyists who are the go-betweens for the wealthy donors to federal elections.  You could almost make a R.I.C.O. case against these people. Thomas Jefferson said, “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing……… It is the medicine necessary for the sound health of the government……. God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without that rebellion….. the tree of liberty MUST be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.  It is a natural manure.”                                        

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