Gun Rights and Voting

[ScooterCO]

Term limits for all elected officials is my soap box. The other is, the repeal of "I get a pay check for life".. how did congress ever have the ballls to get that thru? How did we let it happen?
I am getting very disillusioned with the whole system and on how it is operating in complete disregard of the people and common sense.
Less government is a better government!

[Scanker19]

Term limits for all elected officials is my soap box. The other is, the repeal of "I get a pay check for life".. how did congress ever have the ballls to get that thru? How did we let it happen?
I am getting very disillusioned with the whole system and on how it is operating in complete disregard of the people and common sense.
Less government is a better government!

I would love to see the pay scale for the "paycheck for life."

Term limits are good if they are doing bad, but what if, just what if, they did a good job, they'd be gone after a few years.

[Teufelhund]

I would love to see the pay scale for the "paycheck for life."

Term limits are good if they are doing bad, but what if, just what if, they did a good job, they'd be gone after a few years.

Ask and ye shall receive: http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscong...ongresspay.htm

This is an often repeated myth. I was mad about it too until I found out it isn't true.

Members of Congress are not eligible for a pension until they reach the age of 50, but only if they've completed 20 years of service. Members are eligible at any age after completing 25 years of service or after they reach the age of 62. Please also note that Members of Congress have to serve at least 5 years to even receive a pension.

The amount of a congressperson's pension depends on the years of service and the average of the highest 3 years of his or her salary. By law, the starting amount of a Member's retirement annuity may not exceed 80% of his or her final salary.

According to the Congressional Research Service, 413 retired Members of Congress were receiving federal pensions based fully or in part on their congressional service as of Oct. 1, 2006. Of this number, 290 had retired under CSRS and were receiving an average annual pension of $60,972. A total of 123 Members had retired with service under both CSRS and FERS or with service under FERS only. Their average annual pension was $35,952 in 2006.

[mevshooter]

1) Politicians are paid on a sliding scale after their term is up that is based on their general approval rating. So basically if you suck ass and have a 25% job approval rating then you get 25% of that positions standard salary. That way you as an elected official have a vested interest in doing the right thing by the majority of your constituent population.

2) Ban all political advertising. Give each candidate a specific forum to answer questions that are selected by the American people, then have those answers available for all to see prior to election. Formal structured debates would also be a good idea, but the most important part is getting the money out of election races. If they can not advertise, then they do not need 90% of their current budgets, which gets them out of the pockets of special interest groups. Make it illegal for any elected in office politician to accept money from any source other than their private business ventures (which should be closely monitored) and their pay as voted on by the people.

I don't think politicians should get anything after they are out of office. Most of them parlay their political status/fame into consulting firms, business ventures, etc (if they already haven't before they were in office) so I don't understand them getting ANY money at all. A guy serves in the military for 8 years and gets just about nothing when he leaves. Why should political office be any different?

And I agree with that second part. Political advertising is crap, and downright dishonest most of the time. And the fact that Obama received tons of money from foreign entities is INSANE.

[spqrzilla]

Yeah, Dr. Hsieh was all about incrementalism and the NRA is definitely a success story on that end. She just was pointing out that an attitude of "we need to vote in the guy who is not quite as bad as the other guy" is often counterproductive.

Well, your second sentence contradicts the first.

[Sharpienads]

Well, your second sentence contradicts the first.

Well played, sir!

[bogie]

The year for abstainment, this is not.

[Daniel_187]

OP good write up. But right or left (see pic, and my pic skills are -19)

[hollohas]

She pointed out that it used to be that the Democrat would be adamantly anti-gun (no guns / registration) in many places, with the Republican moderately anti-gun (supports the AWB, etc.) The idea was the Republican could be safely "moderately" anti-gun, and help pick up some independent voters, and what would the hardcore pro-gunners do? Vote democrat?

Actually, they abstained. And that tipped more than a few elections - until the Republican party started realizing that they were losing more votes than they were gaining with that sort of stance, and began to move in the proper direction or gun rights.

Edit: My favorite line of the night was "when you keep voting for the lesser of two evils, you end up with a lot of evil."

.

Regarding the part in bold. This took me a minute to understand (not being a smart ass, it did confuse me)...

She is saying that even if folks voted republican back then we would have still gotten the AWB? But by not voting for anyone the republican party of the time changed their ways? And therefore 10 years later the AWB went away and more republicans are pro gun? Is that what she is saying?

I thought that the pro-gun change happened when people actually DID vote..when they voted OUT the antis. Not when people abstained from voting.

Serious questions...not sarcasm.

[Bailey Guns]

I guess in order to believe that you have to accept the "lesser of two evils" premise. I don't.

I think that's become a kind of bumper-sticker slogan for a lot of people (not everyone) who really don't give much thought to what really happens in politics.