A smaller government, why not smaller congressional support staff?

According to the CNBC post

 “The truth is that both the president and House Republicans have agreed to shrink a critical part of the government to its smallest in at least half a century.”

www.cnbc.com/id/100326700

Does it not stand to reason that the Senate and House member’s staff should also shrink?

Does it not stand to reason that the White House Staff should also shrink?

As of 6 January 2011 House Resolution 22, reduced each members authorized level for 2011 and 2012 by 5 percent of the 2010 level.  2011 allowances range from $1,356,975 Dollars to $1,671,596 Dollars with an average Member’s Representational Allowance of $1,446,009 Dollars.  This according to the Congressional Research Service document found at the following link

library.clerk.house.gov/reference-files/112_20120104_Salary.pdf

Well it time for another House Resolution to fund the Member’s Representational Allowance.  It was nice that they took a 5 percent hit off of the 2010 allowance levels.  The question now is what about 2013 and 2014 Members Representational Allowance?  Are we the people only going to get a token reduction, or will congress step up show some leadership reduce their spending on their own offices and staffs?

The distinguished members of the Congress of the United States should step up and take one for the team cut your staff positions, not one of the lower paid slots, no fish bone the salaries, and pick a salary that will make a statement, that you care.

I know it is hard to come to plate, and then crowd the plate, know that the pitcher is going to throw the heater at you, and you have to step into the pitch, it will hurt but you will get on base and after all you know you cannot score unless you are on base.

I am sure that like most business, your largest expense item in your Members Representational Allowance is personnel, people are not cheap, and good people are really not cheap.  At the present time you are limited in the number of individual you may hire full time and part time (There is just so much of God’s work that must be done, what was leadership thinking when they came up with this).  Additional limits have been placed on the maximum salary that you may pay individual staff members (Good people are really expensive). Finally your Official Office Expenses are capped (do these people not know how expensive office supplies and equipment are?).

It is tough being a member of the United States Congress, and it just keeps getting harder in that you must stand for re election every two years (What were the founding fathers thinking), especially now given that you must start your campaign for your next term no sooner than you were elected to the current term (24 hour news cycle is a bitch).  To make matter worse the voters actually expect you to do something legislatively (What were they thinking, or were they even thinking?)

I know reducing your Members Representational Allowance, by any significant percentage (25-45 percent) would not significantly change the current deficit picture, the few hundred Million dollars of savings would hardly change the current very deficit number.  But a mighty Oak grows from an acorn, and a start is a start.  One must begin the journey somewhere.

I know that a 25 to 45 percent reduction in the Members Representational Allowance would put a great many good people out of work, but good people typically do not have a problem finding a new job, or at least that is what you are told.  If these individual are not fortunate to find a new position, well there is always unemployment insurance (Or did we gut that fish), anyway if they are unemployment it is certainly cheaper for the United States, unemployment payment is considerable less then their current salaries, and after all it all comes out of the same pot, and you still have your position (That a good thing, right?) and you will have reduced United States government expenditures, and made government smaller (I am sure that these two items were central to re election campaign).

Is it time to call for a Constitutional Convention?

Do we need to call for a Constitutional Convention for proposing Amendments per the requirements of Article V of the United States Constitution?  Can we get 2/3 of the state legislatures to introduce and pass binding resolution, by veto proof majorities?  Can we get 3/4 of the state legislatures to introduce and pass the proposed amendment by veto proof majorities?

To carry on with the tongue and cheek comment by Warren Buffet concerning how to solve the deficit mess. Instead of hanging the Sword of Damocles over the heads of the citizens about the current deficit situation, and threating to blow all us of out of the water.  Why not put the Sword over the heads or our elected legislative members.  Putting their jobs on the line if and when they as a body cannot do the job.

Do we the people want or need mechanism to help up make the hard choices?  Forbid that "We the people"  actual take some initiative and responsibility for this current mess.  If the answer is that we require such a mechanism to save us from our selves.  The following might be such a mechanism.

A proposed amendment to the United State Constitution could read something like this:

Here by let it be resolved and agreed that all sitting members of the Congress of United States, either duly elected or duly appointed would not be eligible to stand for re-election to for any seat in any of the legislative bodies as defined in the United States Constitution in the subsequent congressional election cycle if the United States Treasury annual computed Current Accounts has a deficit greater than 3 percent of the United States Department of Commerce computed Current Annual Gross Domestic Product during the current congressional term they are serving.  Additionally setting members of the current United States Congress in which the Current Accounts exceed the Current Annual Gross Domestic Product shall be ineligible to be appointed to any open seat in either of the legislative bodies for the current term of those bodies, and the subsequent natural term of those bodies.  The terms of this amendment may be suspended for the remainder of the current Congressional session by two-thirds supermajority vote in both houses of the Congress of the United States of that Congressional session.

So why do we need something like this?  Let us look at some statistics concern the current United States Congress and the two previous incarnations of that body.

In the 109^th Congress the average age of the members was 56.0 years.  The average age of a Representative was 55 years.  The average age of a Senator was 60.0 years.  The dominant professions of the members are Law, Public Service/Politics, and Business.  The Average length of service for a Representative was 4.3 terms, or 9.3 years.  The average length of service for a Senator was 2.01 terms or 12.1 years.

In the 110^th Congress the average age of the members was 57.0 years.  The average age of a Representative was 55.9 years.  The average age of a Senator was 61.7 years.  The dominant professions of the members are Public Service/Politics, Business, and Law.  The Average length of service for a Representative was 5.1 terms, 10.2 years.  The average length of service for a Senator was 2.1 terms or 12.8 years.

In the 111^th Congress the average age of the members was 58.2 years.  The average age of a Representative was 57.2 years.  The average age of a Senator was 63.1 years.  The dominant professions of the members are Public Service/Politics, Business, and Law.  The Average length of service for a Representative was 5.15 terms, 10.3 years.  The average length of service for a Senator was 2.2 terms or 13.4 years.

All of the above data is from the Congress Research Service, Library of Congress reports for 109^th, 110^th, and 111^th Membership Profile reports.

I hear about all of the new/young blood coming into the Congress from the various news services and yet the data indicates that it is a bunch of crud.  The average Representatives average length of service since the 109^th Congress has increased by 19.7 percent.  The average Senator length of service since the 109^th Congress has increase by 10.8 percent.  The house members have had to stand for two election cycles since the 109^th Congress.  That was two chances to change the makeup of United States House of Representatives.  A third of the Senate has had a chance to stand for one election cycle.  For one group it was two chances, for the second group it was one chance to put the fear of God into someone.

So as one can see “We the People” have been throwing the bums out (NOT).  Yes we the citizen of this republic have been doing our job (NOT).  Meanwhile the leadership of this country and the citizens are just pissing time away, and digging the pit deeper.

I am not sure that our founding fathers really wanted the country that they founded run by individuals who identify their occupation as Public Service/Politics.  The signers of the Declaration of Independence were Lawyers (25), Merchants (15), Farmer/Plantation Owners (9), Physicians (4), Scientist (1), and Minister (1).  As best as I can tell none of them really identified their occupation as “Public Service/Politics”.  Many if not all of them practice Public Service and Politics, but they were not so bold as to declare it as an occupation, with all of the attendant baggage that an occupation has.

Why the hell are the Tea Party members not pushing an agenda like this?  Here is their chance to make a lasting mark in the history of the United States, as opposed to being an over looked footnote.

Why are we supporting NATO? Why are supporting NATO in Libya? What does it have to do with the Deficit?

Given the latest remarks by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy 24 June 2011. http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=6914474&c=EUR&s=TOP  Why are we supporting NATO (I mean the French and the Brits) in this endeavor (folly) in Libya?

This question begs some additional larger questions.  What is purpose of NATO? (This is left to the reader)  Why is the United States still in NATO? (Ibid.)  Why is the United States paying most of the cost of NATO? (Ibid.)

In 1999 the United States was paying 1.148 Trillion Dollars for NATO operations.  In 2010 the United States paid somewhere around 0.712 Trillion Dollars for NATO operations.  We still pay the same percentage of the Total NATO Budget; because the NATO budget is smaller and  hence our portion is smaller.  Of course the main reason the NATO budget is smaller is that the United States is given less.  But regardless of the reason the United States is spending nearly three-quarters of a Trillion Dollars to be a member of the Country Club.

If we the people do not feel that we the people are getting our money’s worth then it is up to we the people to change the situation.

Just a little back of the envelope budget exercise, I know that it is as crude as an axe, but it is at least a starting point.  If the United States could magically drop out of the NATO Country Club, and stop paying our annual membership due what would that due to the United States Budget deficit?

The effect on the FY 2010 Budget would have resulted in a 54.9 percent reduction in the Deficit.  Here is how the math works out.  According to the Financial Management Service of the Dept. of the Treasury, May 2011 Monthly Treasury Statement the FY 2010 deficit was  $1,294,203,000,000.00.  I put all of the zero’s in for effect, since the MTS reports their number in Million, we do not want to scare the public.  If we subtract out the $710,000,000,000.00 for NATO for FY 2010, we are left with a deficit of $583,203,000,000.00 for FY 2010, which is a 54.93 Percent reduction.

If we get a little more adventurous and subtract the $11,400,000,000.00 for the F-#%, (F-35) program, and the $30,000,000,000.00 for the supplemental Afghanistan funding we would have knocked down the FY 2010 deficit to  $538,803,000,000.00 which is a 58.3 percent reduction.

Three items and we are nearly 60 percent the way to reducing the deficit to zero.

The NATO numbers come from the following link http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2011/06/22/Libya-May-Be-NATOs-Last-Mission.aspx

The F-#% (F-35) Program come from the following link www.afa.org/edop/2009/R40567.pdf

The FY 2010 Supplemental Number for Afghanistan from the following link http://democrats.appropriations.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=623&Itemid=28

The Deficit numbers come from the following link http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/index.html

Three items from the United States Budget ok two from the budget, and one from off the budget. And we have made a very significant inroad into the problem.  The deficit does not care if they on or off the budget.

As I used to say when I taught Physics, I have made the first pass; the rest is left up to the students to complete.

The best thing about cutting these items is: 

NATO does not vote in any House, Senate, or Presidential elections, so there should be no constituent’s cry about it, all right there might be some, who could lose contracts.  Given the resent remarks by the President of France on the outgoing SECDEF, it going to be hard if not down right impossible for most of us to continue our support of NATO.

Afghanistan has few if many individual who vote in any House, Senate, or Presidential elections.  There might be a few screams in Afghanistan, but that’s on the other side of the world.  Most of the screams will be from learning that the Gravy Train is leaving the Station.

F-#% (F-35) does have some constituents, but with killing of the F-#%(F-35) we will still have to spend some funds upgrading and purchasing additional legacy aircraft, and since they come from the same sources, the crying should not be as loud.  Yes they are not going to make as much money, but they are still going to make some money.