I got an email from a friend outlining Buffet's Congressional Reform Act. Talk about a proposition for change!
"I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," Warren Buffet told CNBC.
"You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election."
****Buffet's Congressional Reform Act of 2011*****
1. No Tenure / No Pension.
-A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they're 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/women are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women.
--Congressmen/women 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.
Though the broader point is still interesting to discuss, this e-mail is actually mostly false (Buffett did make the initial quote, but has nothing to do w/ the '28th Amendment' portion). http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/28thamendment.asp
ReplyDeleteAnyway to comment regarding change I would note that the US federal government was actually meticulously designed to move slowly when anything but a sustained super-majority exists (quite rare these days!). Some may argue that's a bad idea (I think it's a good idea) but the reality is it's working almost as planned 200+ years ago.
As a result, since these items are much more contentious than they first may appear, getting even one item off the proposed list enacted would be nearly impossible, let alone all seven. Additionally, most of these amendments are either too vague to mean anything or unnecessary since congress is required to do most of these things...
Buffett's quote/idea is interesting too but still remains nearly impossible to implement. It is subject to gaming (the minority party might sink a budget to intentionally help gain majority status next election by wiping out all incumbents ...) and is arbitrary (why 3%?). I would not expect a super-majority to build around this idea anytime soon... (which is basically a simple way to view a highly complex fight around the federal entitlements (Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid), defense spending, and tax policy...)
I love Buffett's idea - it gives people an incentive to make change!
ReplyDeleteAndy - clearly you are of the belief that some things are better left alone. Government has this interesting problem of trying to provide relative stability in the face of a constantly changing social environment. I guess it's pretty hard to make rules now that will be meaningful 200 years from now.
ReplyDelete"Buffett" (or whoever dressed up his ideas in to the pithy form in the email) certainly understands the power of incentives that will be needed to drive change. That's what we often forget - the incentives to change will have to be pretty powerful!
I totally agree, the incentives to change will need to be powerful... what i feel like his ideas lacks is the 2nd layer. What incentive does congress have to put those incentives (the new rule restricting re-election) in place? That's really the trick and doesn't appear to be trivial to solve.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I tend to be a minimalist when it comes to government... I would argue that government doesn't need to change that much to provide the minimal structure society needs (and many want). When it attempts to do too much (often to make life more 'fair'), that's where things get quite complex and hard to adapt as rapidly as would be required to do so successfully.
I like the 3% rule, but the Supreme Court would squash it (organizational constraint?). It's kind of like term limits a few years back. They could only be voluntary.
ReplyDeleteAs with all issues, incentives affecting money and power and the surest ways to elicit meaningful change. I think Buffet's "distilled" ideas are golden.
ReplyDelete@Bill - If you amend the Constitution, the Supreme Court can't challenge anything (hence the pointing to the 28th Amendment).
ReplyDelete@Andy - He's not asking Congress to make any changes (so their incentives don't matter). If you change how Congress is treated, then you'll change how they act. And regarding gaming, don't political parties already do that?
In my opinion, the real question is - will voters rally around this message and push for a Constitutional change? That I doubt, for purely marketing reasons.
I definitely agree on the importance and power of incentives. I feel the only incentive under the current system is to make the most noise about the problems rather than to actually fix them.
ReplyDeleteI want that reform to be apply in the Venezuelan congress too!
ReplyDeleteNow, who has to vote for the implementation of this ideas? because it is kind of dumb that the congress is the one that decides.
That happened in Venezuela a couple of years ago. There was debate about the salary of the supreme court that the same supreme court end up deciding. Guess who the decision favor??