Philip Blumel: Time is money. Let’s talk about tenure’s $40 trillion bill. Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the Term Limits Movement. This is episode number 290, published on August 24th, 2026.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel: So, the national debt has hit $40 trillion. $40 trillion is $117,000 for every American, every man, woman, and child. And that’s the bill already on the table. This isn’t the kind of problem that pops up in one day. It takes decades. It doesn’t just flare up when the wrong party is in power and then go away when the right party wins. It’s the result of both parties working together over generations. Now, from the public’s point of view, we call this dysfunction. But is it dysfunction from the point of view of Congress itself? I mean, if the goal of politicians is to win power and keep it forever, enriching themselves in the process, maybe the system is functioning just fine in their view. After all, they haven’t made any moves to change it. Think about this, the election rules are engineered to protect incumbents. A 90% plus reelection rate is evidence that it’s very easy for a politician to stay on board the gravy train if they just play by the rules. And rule number one is, you vote for my spending and I’ll vote for yours. We see polarization on many social issues, and even in spending, there’s issues which we see Republicans and Democrats spar. But this is only on the surface of the water. Beneath the sparring, there is deep, deep agreement. By far, most politicians vote for most spending year in and year out, even as they lambast the other team. They are rewarded for this by the support of the constituent interests that they require to win yet another election. With a reelection rate well over 90% and often close to 100%, if retention of power is the goal, this system isn’t dysfunctional. It’s functioning nearly perfectly, almost 100% of the time.
Philip Blumel: Now, what if a career politician who has benefited from this system has a crisis of conscience? What would happen? Well, first, unless said congressmember is in leadership, it wouldn’t make much difference. And keep in mind that congressional leadership, the ones who decide what gets voted on, have earned their position through tenure. That is, they are the chief beneficiaries of the system. Change is highly unlikely. To get to the position where one could make a difference, one must continue to play this game, voting for spending and accepting the support to maintain office. It takes decades to get to leadership. You can get elected with a conscience, but it would take a superman to still have it intact decades later when you are crowned the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. But the perverse incentives run even deeper. To stop playing the game, you would have to turn around and face the people who have been funding and supporting you for so many years and say, “No more.”
Philip Blumel: Now, often these people are your friends, your golfing buddies, and they certainly are part of your team, the group that has made you successful. And let’s not pretend that the politicians are unwilling marionettes here. They’re not innocents. I mean, it’s a two-way street. Sure, special interests have an awful lot of control over their bought politicians. But politicians are simultaneously shaking down these special interests in exchange for this control. It is mutual. It is long-term. It works for both parties. The existence of this well-functioning reelection machine means that anyone running for Congress is okay with or actually wants to be a successful career politician. Around the office, we call this adverse preselection. So, from the point of view of the politicians, Congress is functional. So how do we change it? Well, we have to change the goal. If lifetime career tenure is not available, the incentives faced by Congress members will naturally change. Now, you know where I’m going with this. If Congress members were term-limited, they would not be as beholden to these constituent interests. It’d be much easier to turn around and say no, people would run for Congress with goals other than simply being a career politician. Serious goal-oriented people would view Congress as worth some time, I mean, not their entire working lives, in order to achieve something that was important to them. The bottom line is that if lifetime self-enriching tenure is not available, politicians will not be incented to bankrupt our country in order to achieve it.
Speaker 3: This is a public service announcement.
Philip Blumel: Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts was first elected to Congress 50 years ago in 1976. Since that time, the national debt has grown from about 620 billion to 40 trillion, which is an increase of over 6,000%. Senator Markey faces Congress member Seth Moulton in the September 1st Democratic primary election. In this exchange from their final debate last week, Representative Moulton makes a term-limits-adjacent point for which Markey had no answer. Incidentally, Representative Moulton is a vocal supporter of term limits for both Congress and for congressional leadership, whereas Senator Markey has been a lifetime opponent.
Speaker 4: Senator Markey, do you personally use AI platforms like Claude or ChatGPT in your work?
Senator Markey: I use whatever is inside of my iPhone and my iPad, whatever comes up. And I don’t know what companies my iPad might be using, but if it does in fact provide me with the information which I’ve been asked… I’m asking the device to give to me, then of course I’m using it.
Speaker 4: Congressman Moulton?
Congressman Moulton: Yes, I use AI. We’re very careful about how to use it, to use it honestly, to use it effectively. But these are tools that can help, but they’re also tools that need protections. And with all due respect, Senator, if you don’t even know what you’re using on your phone or your iPad, this is why we need a new generation of leaders to regulate these technologies, to make sure that they are safe, they are safe for families.
Philip Blumel: Okay, back to our $40 trillion bill for congressional tenure. This isn’t just rhetoric I’m spewing here. We can look to the experience of the states to find that term limits do encourage fiscal restraint, or in other words, they empower politicians to better resist the siren call of lobbyists to spend more on their projects. Economics professor Randy Holcombe of Florida State University published a study that suggests lobbying is less effective in term-limited states. An examination of US state government budgets before and after the implementation of term limits in then 16 states shows that prior to the implementation of term limits, state revenues and expenditures tended to grow at about the same rate in states that implemented term limits and those that did not. But after the implementation of term limits, revenues and expenditures grew more slowly in states that implemented term limits. The reduction in the growth of state budgets after the implementation of term limits is both economically and statistically significant.
Philip Blumel: Oh, and one last thing, and this one’s partly on us as voters. I want to make the point that fiscal restraint is not a left or right-wing position. Fiscal responsibility requires that we spend within our means. It does not dictate what we spend our limited resources on. People of different political stripes will have genuinely different ideas on what to spend it on. The problem that I’m talking about right here is that the irresistible incentive for a career politician under this current system is to say, “If you vote for the spending I need to get reelected forever, I’ll vote for the spending you need to get reelected forever,” rather than to compromise within the limits set by the money available. This is what we need to change. And term limits changes that incentive.
Philip Blumel: Next, another term limits surprise in this year’s primary elections. In the special Republican primary held on August 11, 2026, triggered by Lindsey Graham’s death, US Representative Ralph Norman finished a solid second with roughly 24 to 25% of the vote. Darlene Graham, Lindsey’s sister, who has been appointed to the seat, led with about 33%. Neither reached a majority, so they advanced to the August 25th runoff this week. Now, for the last five years or so, Representative Ralph Norman has been the lead sponsor of the main House Joint Resolution proposing a constitutional amendment for congressional term limits. He first introduced it in January 2021 and has every year since. He is a signer of the US Term Limits pledge and a vocal supporter of congressional term limits. In fact, he says on the campaign trail that he’s already term-limited himself by choosing not to seek another House term. Just last week he said, “I was going to get out of the House of Representatives. I liked it, but eight years is enough.” He’s pledged to serve no more than two terms in the US Senate if elected and continues to push for a term limits amendment to the Constitution.
Philip Blumel: Darlene Graham, on the other hand, has declined to sign the US Term Limits pledge. So term limits are on the ballot in the Republican primary for the US Senate in South Carolina this week. You could say that term limits has already won the South Carolina Democratic primary for US Senator, as the Democratic nominee is also a signer of the US Term Limits pledge to cosponsor and vote for a congressional term limits constitutional amendment. That’s Dr. Annie Andrews. So if Representative Norman wins the runoff, we can be sure of adding another pledge signer to the US Senate in November. The term limits train keeps a-rolling.
Philip Blumel: Next, while running for president in October 2016, President Trump at campaign rallies in Colorado explicitly pledged that if elected, he would push for a constitutional amendment imposing term limits on members of Congress. He specified a limit of three terms in the House and two terms in the Senate. Since then, he’s joked about term limits, mostly in repeatedly threatening to run for a third or fourth term in violation of the 22nd Amendment. He also kidded around about term limits at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in July when he made a joke about elderly senators. Well, we finally got a serious reference from the President last week. In response to a reporter’s question, the President explicitly reiterated his support for the idea of congressional term limits. More or less.
President Trump: I’m okay with term limits. Remember, the people that have to pass term limits are the people that are going to be voting on them to get out of office. So it’s a little bit tough. That’s not the easiest vote to get, is it? Huh? But I’m okay with it one way or the other.
Philip Blumel: “Okay with it.” Well, we take what we can get. Enjoy your summer. Stay cool out there.
Stacey Selleck: Like the show? You can help by subscribing and leaving a five-star review on both Apple and Spotify. It’s free.
Philip Blumel: Thanks for joining us for another episode of No Uncertain Terms. The Term Limits Convention bills are moving through the state legislatures. This could be a breakthrough year for the term limits movement. To check on the status of the Term Limits Convention resolution in your state, go to termlimits.com/takeaction. There you will see if it has been introduced and where it stands in the committee process on its way to the floor vote. If there’s action to take, you’ll see a Take Action button by your state. Click it. This will give you the opportunity to send a message to the most relevant legislators, urging them to support the legislation. They have to know you’re watching. That’s termlimits.com/takeaction. If your state has already passed the Term Limits Convention resolution or the bill’s not been introduced in your state, you can still help. Please consider making a contribution to US Term Limits. It is our aim to hit the reset button on the US Congress, and you can help. Go to termlimits.com/donate. Termlimits.com/donate. Thanks. We’ll be back next week.
Stacey Selleck: Find us on most social media @ustermlimits. Like us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and now LinkedIn.
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