Since the Supreme Court’s Obamacare decision Thursday is all anybody seems to want to discuss today, let me ask you a question: Remember candidate Obama’s promise during the 2008 campaign to televise the health care reform negotiations on C-SPAN if he became president?
It never happened, of course. In fact, the opposite occurred, as virtually every jot and tittle of Obamacare’s 2,700-plus pages was negotiated in backrooms on Capitol Hill. The contents were so secret, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously said that “we have to pass the bill so you can see what’s in it away from the fog.”
That unkept C-SPAN promise epitomizes the fundamental problem with the career politicians who dominate both major political parties — they lie, early and often. And when they aren’t spinning outright falsehoods, they carpet-bomb whoever will listen with half-truths — which are also half-lies.
At least Obama is an equal-opportunity fibber, telling lies to the Left and the Right. Last time I checked, Gitmo is still open, which ought to grate on all those liberals who cheered so heartily when Obama promised to close it.
And the Obamacon crowd of conservatives who backed Obama in 2008 may recall Obama’s promise of “a net spending cut” in the federal budget. With $1 trillion-plus deficits every year since his inauguration, Obama might well be the most spectacular fiscal liar ever in the Oval Office.
Republicans are just as guilty here as Democrats. Remember the GOP’s Contract From America in 2010 and the promise to cut $100 billion in federal spending?
Not only have House GOPers not cut anything remotely close to $100 billion, they are moving a larded-up transportation bill that adds to the $16 trillion national debt. They are contributing to the problem as we descend into the same fiscal chaos that now makes Greece such a wonderful place to live.
It wasn’t this way when the Constitution was adopted. The Founders’ generation distrusted career politicians, but they didn’t have to include formal congressional term limits in the Constitution because they already existed in the political culture.
Before the Civil War, it was not unusual for 60 percent of a new Congress to be freshmen. Most congressmen did a few terms in Washington, then went home, often to serve in their state legislatures, which many viewed as more important. That ensured a constant flow of new blood into Congress and thus kept the institution closer to the daily concerns of the people.
Then came what political scientist Nelson Polsby called “the Big Bang” between 1890 and 1910, a period in which a variety of factors combined to encourage the growth of careerism, especially in the House of Representatives.
Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress elected in 1994 had promised term limits, but then contrived through a deceptive parliamentary process to rig the vote against the concept.
A subsequent court ruling made the term limits issue moot, unless the Constitution is amended to cap how long a senator or representative can serve.
Those who dismiss the prospects for a congressional term limits amendment would do well to recall that presidential term limits came about as a result of such a process.
And with congressional approval ratings at all-time lows and distrust of Washington politicians in both parties at all-time highs, the time might be right for a term limits amendment to be initiated by a congressman who wants to restore the Hill’s credibility.
Just be wary if they promise to televise the proceedings on C-SPAN.
Mark Tapscott is executive editor of The Washington Examiner.
