REFORM CONGRESS
According to a recent poll, 46% of Americans say they think most members of Congress are corrupt. One of the cornerstones of my campaign is personal responsibility. I believe that Congress needs to clean up its act. Without ethical leadership in Congress, our political process will remain broken and incapable of addressing urgent challenges, from creating jobs to reforming our immigration system.
I believe in a citizen legislature instead of professional politicians who look at Washington DC as a career. This is why I strongly support term limits for the US House and Senate and I pledge to you that if I am elected, I will limit my own term to six years or three terms.
Today members of Congress police themselves - which is why members who violate ethics rules have a better chance of being struck by lightning than being investigated for their conduct. The rare punishment for blatant ethics violations is never more than a painless slap on the wrist. I support a non-partisan regulator to enforce a basic, common-sense principle: If members violate ethics rules, they should be removed from office. After all, it is a standard that working Americans are held to every day.
Several major pieces of legislation have been passed by Congress without having been read by lawmakers, including the trillion-dollar “stimulus” and the “cap and trade” bills. I support reforms that require all bills to be posted online at least seven days before a vote, so lawmakers AND citizens can actually read the bill and debate its pros and cons. Trillion dollar bills rammed through in the dark of night must end.
If a citizen misses filing their taxes by April 15th each year, they are subjected to fines and penalties. Millions have spent weekends inside trying to make sense of the too-complicated forms instead of enjoying early spring. The Congressional Budget Act (CBA) of 1974 specifies Congress must complete its annual budget resolution by April 15. But Congress seems comfortable mssing their deadline. It’s time Congress faced real consequences for not doing the job they were hired to do; creating a budget is one of Congress’s fundamental responsibilities. I support legislation to suspend Congressional pay if an annual budget is not passed by the deadline.
Business as usual has to end in Washington DC. We need to elect citizens who will go to Washington that have the backbone to stand up to the status quo.