Why Term Limits Would Clean Up America’s Political Sewage Spill

Twenty-four trillion USD in national debt and nearly 20 million unemployed. And neither Trump nor Biden have provided a clear path back from the COVID-19 financial abyss.

The only clear strategy for each party candidate is “I’m not him.” That’s not great leadership, folks. However, I’m going to leave presidential politics aside for one moment and focus on something that would fix the system that delivers us the choice of “Head or Gut punch?” in November.

The real sad thing I’ve reflected on recently is that our two-party system of politics is so toxic. Most of America’s great leaders (we have a lot of them) have a “Born to Lose” tattoo on their political bicep. Very few want to run for office because of the toxicity a modern campaign brings. People will search out any reason to light the internet torches and rally the mob.

How many of us did incredibly stupid things in our youth? Stuff that would make us cringe if we saw it today? It’s all fair game today, to be twisted and packaged up for the town square lynch mob.

Nothing is safe. Just ask Brett Kavanaugh.

I’m not a constitutional scholar but I’ve read enough to arrive at the conclusion that the founders of this country didn’t envision a system of government run by career politicians.

I’ve studied enough about economics and incentives to arrive at the conclusion that if Americans were to demand and implement just one thing, it would go a long way to fixing our political pigpen. Remove or put in place proper incentives and it drives behavior.

Term limits.

This not only gets rid of the political royalty in America (the Clintons, the Bushs, and Kennedys to name a few). It also takes away most of the incentives that have our politicians making poor policy decisions across the board.

Start ticking off your personal list of things that you would like to see fixed in America and term limits goes a long way towards solving most of our big problems.

My Personal Top Three:

1. Education: We’ve fallen way behind here. Investing in our children’s education should be a top priority. Corona is highlighting how messed up the entire system really is from kindergarten to college.

2. Healthcare: We pay enough taxes to ensure every American gets basic healthcare at no cost. A rich kid with cancer shouldn’t live longer than a poor kid with the same condition, but it happens.

3. Foreign Policy Gone Wild: We’ve spent over $2 trillion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan and at what cost? What is the benefit to us? Some of our best and brightest are dead, maimed, or walking dead back home. They are committing suicide en masse because they’ve been overexposed to combat trauma with no purpose. Purpose gives us the ability to rationalize what we’ve seen or done.

Nobody wants to talk about this shit, but I refuse to let it go.

So let’s put the hero-worship, and the social media posts about dead heroes, aside for one minute. Rather, let’s think about two simple things we can all do to really realign American incentives.

1. VOTE

2. Demand Term Limits

Time to stop talking and start doing.