Career Politicians,
"The Rotten Government We're Getting"
and Johnson's Law
by Rense Johnson, Chairman, Citizens for Term Limits

For those of you who slept through Econ. 101, Gresham's Law tells us that bad money drives good money out of circulation. The most recent example of the application of this law was when our government replaced silver coinage with base nickle-clad copper we have today. The silver disappeared from circulation because it had value, and was kept by the citizenry.

Gresham's Law has its counterpart in politics. That is to say, bad politicians drive good politicians out of circulation. More specifically, those whose baser natures are better controlled are pushed aside by those by those who respond to such baser instincts and whose actions are governed by them. The pygmies elbow the Giants out of circulation. I call the phenomenon Johnson's Law.

Johnson's Law was not a problem during the early days of the Republic in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when congressional service entailed weeks or months away from home at a time when travel and communications were arduous. Sacrifice was indeed demanded of the officeholder, who had to arrange for a family member or trusted associate to run the family farm or business in his absence. Selection for public office was an honor, but also a high form of duty. Johnson's Law had not manifested itself at that time.

Sometime between then and now, all this changed. A likely turning point in retrospect would be 1913, the year the income tax Sixteenth Amendment was ratified.

This change put Congress into what Professor Walter Williams calls the favor-granting business. Quoting colleagues at George Mason University, Williams points out that Congress, using tax-setting authority and by asserting control over business, labor and other special interest groups has set itself up to grant favors. This permits one group to enrich itself at the expense of the economy as a whole or of another specific group. It is an excellent article, and I commend it to you. The title: "Campaign finance reform: Wrong target" The solution suggested by Professor Williams:

"I say: Forget about campaign finance reform. If Congress did only what it's constitutionally authorized to do, influence-peddling would be a non-issue because Congress wouldn't have the power to grant favors. It might also help if we had a law that read: Whatever Congress does for one American it must do for all Americans. If Congress pays one American not to raise pigs, every American not raising pigs should also receive payments."

Meaning no disrespect to Dr. Williams (I think his article is outstanding, and for me at least, a breakthrough), the only way to get Congress to do what he suggests it should do is to amend the Constitution. Limit congressional terms, thus attracting more of the kind of public servants whose better natures prevail over their baser instincts, and relieving the pressure of Johnson's Law — making possibly the election to Congress of members who will protect and defend the Constitution and pay attention to the Tenth Amendment — the Giants.

Williams went on to say "I fear that neither measure would get American support, so we deserve the rotten government we're getting." Here again I respectfully disagree. Yes, career politicians and those who live off them will by nature fight a term limit amendment in every way they can. And yes these enemies of good government are thus preserving declining standards of mediocrity.

But the American people love the idea of term limitation — which of course makes it attainable. Americans realize they're getting the short end of the stick at the hands of the professional career politicians.

Nor do I agree that we deserve the rotten government we're getting. I believe we're getting the kind of rotten government we've been conditioned over the years to accept, by those who inflict it upon us.

There is a cure for rotten government: A congressional term limitation constitutional amendment.

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