I’ve just released a short (1-hour read), low-cost, new book on Amazon, Beyond Zombie Rule: Restoring Fiscal Sanity In A Broken Congress. The title demonstrates my concern over a critical but underappreciated threat to American democracy.
I believe you are being too kind. Our professional political class has made sure that there is no democracy, and they are perpetually in power. The people of this country need to initiate action to have two constitution amendments come into being, a balanced budget amendment, and a term limit amendment. There is no amount of tax revenue that will please those perpetual rulers. Anyone suggesting so is being terribly naive, or terribly dishonest. Until those two amendments have some real teeth, nothing will change. To accept into our vocabulary the "career" of a politician, or "public servant" is to surrender power, income, and wealth to a small group of elites.
Agreed; I recently took my 90 year old mother to the doctors' office. Sitting in the waiting area amongst may seniors, she said aloud: "I've never seen so many zombies in my life!"
Professor Steuerle,
I believe you are being too kind. Our professional political class has made sure that there is no democracy, and they are perpetually in power. The people of this country need to initiate action to have two constitution amendments come into being, a balanced budget amendment, and a term limit amendment. There is no amount of tax revenue that will please those perpetual rulers. Anyone suggesting so is being terribly naive, or terribly dishonest. Until those two amendments have some real teeth, nothing will change. To accept into our vocabulary the "career" of a politician, or "public servant" is to surrender power, income, and wealth to a small group of elites.
Easy to spend, hard to tax.
Agreed; I recently took my 90 year old mother to the doctors' office. Sitting in the waiting area amongst may seniors, she said aloud: "I've never seen so many zombies in my life!"