Our Senators and Representatives have considerable opportunity to enrich themselves during their tenure in office, indeed many do enrich themselves well beyond what they would reasonably be able to accomplish for themselves on the same income outside Washington D.C..  Why should this be?   It cannot be the salary.   One must therefore project that the problem is one of the perquisites of office.   As a result we take the following position regarding the trappings of office:

• Eliminate the Congressional retirement plan and replace it with a 401K plan that requires Congressmen to contribute and the taxpayer to match up to 3% of the total plan.

• Force the Congress to participate in Social Security – require that all current retirement funds including those of currently retired Congressmen be immediately deposited in the Social Security trust fund and remove that Social Security trust fund from the general budget. 

• The healthcare plan for Congressmen and Senators and all federal employees must be no better than those of private employees. 

• Take away the cars. 

• Take away the lavish expense accounts. 

• Congressmen must live by the same rules as all other federal employees. 

• Take away all private planes.

• Congressmen air travel must be 'coach'. 

• Congressmen must verify at the risk of criminal penalty that they own or rent a bona fide residence in their home district. 

• Stop the foreign junkets.  It is the President who represents us internationally, not the Congress.  

• Enforce ethics violations through an independent body.  

• A means must be provided for the Congressmen's constituents to recall someone who violates their trust. 

• Congressmen must justify the number and the purpose of each member of their personal staff. 

• Every Congressman and Senator must read the legislation and verify under the penalty of perjury that they have sufficient knowledge of a bill to cast their vote.     

• Require a minimum of 1 day per 100 pages of a bill from the time of introduction on the floor to its scheduled vote to provide Congressmen an opportunity to fully study legislation.  

• Do not allow a vote on any measure until 60% of the Congress has verified under penalty of expulsion and criminal charges of perjury that they have read the legislation.

• Provide for automatic expulsion from the Congress of any legislator who more than three times has failed to verify their reading in any session with exceptions only due to illness or other provable means of temporary incapacitation.  

• Provide a means to challenge the fitness of the individual that holds the gavel and create a means for punishing those who would bring baseless charges before the Congress.  

• We should truly want to live in a colorless society.  Eliminate black caucuses.  

• We should truly want to live in a gender neutral society where the rights of men and women are equal.  Eliminate all women's caucuses. 

• Eliminate the concept of groups and any legislation intended to benefit one group over another.  The Constitution talks of individual rights, not group rights.

• Force the Congress to live within its means by a balanced budget amendment. 

• Make it a crime to spend beyond projected revenue flows.  

• Free the Congressional Budget Office from the onerous rules that require them to estimate based upon assumptions economists know to be unrealistic. 

• Force each Congressman to be in his/her home district for Town Hall Meetings at least three separate times per year to include every summer recess.  Town Hall Meetings should never be fewer than one month apart without scheduling an additional Town Hall Meeting.  

• Each Representative and Senator must provide an annual report to their constituents that identify each vote taken on the floor and in committee, a summary of the bill and an explanation as to why the vote was taken that way on behalf of the District or the State.    

• No campaigning or electioneering in odd numbered years.  

• Require that every piece of legislation carry with it a statement from the Attorney General that verifies its conformity to the limited powers granted it by the Constitution.

• Provide a means to challenge the Attorney General opinion to the Supreme Court.  

• Force the Congressman to pick up their portion of the bill when they dine or travel with lobbyists. 

• Gifts from lobbyists must be refused.

• Create criminal penalties for any Congressman who accepts a position with any firm that benefitted from legislation in which the Congressman played a part within five years of exit from office.

• Require a public audit of all tax returns for five years beyond the legislators exit from office.

• Require the Congressmen to report any relationship whether it be spouse or other significant person that could be perceived as a conflict of interest.

• Require that Congressmen recuse themselves from any vote where a perceived conflict of interest might exist. 

• Require that the Congressman always pay a tax rate that is 2% above the rate paid by private individuals in the same income bracket and disqualify the Congressman from all tax deductions not claimed on his/her tax return prior to his/her first election to office.

• Congressional tax returns must be public and audited every year.  Any exclusion of income or any unpaid tax should be cause for immediate expulsion and criminal penalty. 

• Require that medical histories be public. 

• Require that arrest records be public.

• While in office, all speech honoraria should be paid to the government.   Within their home districts and states, Congressmen and Senators must never benefit from speeches made to their constituents.   Allow only that reasonable expenses be reimbursed.  These men and women need to be approachable by all of us.

• As long as the federal government is involved in funding or regulating local schools, the children of elected representatives must be required to attend public schools.   

Argument

Men and women go into the Congress supporting two homes and making a salary that is less than $200K yet in a few years they are millionaires.   It is not the salary that is gaining them these riches.   They are profiting at taxpayer / consumer expense in many different ways.

When Dwight Eisenhower was in England planning the invasion of Normandy, Mamie was approached by Hollywood.  They wanted to do a movie on the general's life.  Mamie contacted Ike and he responded with a hell no.   It was his position that he didn't think much of the measure of a man who would personally profit from a position of public trust.    Let's see how many in our government today agree with him.  

It is difficult to take income away from an individual who is already retired, however these are the people who over the last several decades created this problem and there are many Americans today who are suffering a loss of income as a result of their decisions.   Why should they be immune to the hardship they have caused?