by Michael Harkins

Created on: August 01, 2007   Last Updated: March 19, 2008

America's biggest political problem is the career politician.

Usually it is a lawyer who runs for a local office and climbs the ladder to the state level and then on to senator, congressman, or some other national office. Once in place, they are anchored there until death, or, so it seems.

Career politicians care about power, and keeping it, more than anything else. The money and good they bring to their voting constituents means winning election after election. Power brings fame and fortune. It also brings corruption and forever being locked in their high elite tower.

This is not right! The time for the career politician to go is long overdue!

Many of our founding fathers believed that serving the people was a part time profession. Serve a few years and then return to your profession. Political service was hardly seen as an occupation.

Congressmen, Senators, Governors and Presidents should be made up of Teachers, Business Owners, Bus Drivers, Doctors, Pilots, Engineers, and any other profession you can think of. Today most are attorneys. We need our leaders from backgrounds as diverse as we are, as the citizens of this great country.

I believe we need a change now, and across-the-board term limits are the answer. For a Congressman, 4 two year terms are enough. Change the Senator's length of service from six to four years, and put their cap at eight years total. In addition, once you have served eight years as one, you may not run for the other.

There is a precedent for this. The 22rd Amendment of our Constitution limits the President to two terms, or no more than ten years. It would be ideal if we changed that to just one six year term. Ten years seems about right for a sum total of all political service. How about that!

Term limits will make government more efficient and responsive to our needs by simply having more people participate.

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