Texas Gov. Rick Perry proposed making the U.S. Congress a part-time job Tuesday and ending the lifetime tenure of federal judges, calling it a step toward his goal of radically changing the relationship between Washington and the rest of the country.
“I do not believe Washington needs a new coat of paint, it needs a complete overhaul,” Perry told a crowd of roughly 100 people in Bettendorf, Iowa. “We need to uproot, tear down and rebuild Washington, D.C., and our federal institutions.”
With congressional approval ratings at an all-time low, Perry is trying to reboot a lagging campaign by tapping into the country’s mounting contempt for Washington.
But critics say Perry has overshot his target in this latest appeal, with some experts on government calling the proposals “ridiculous.”
“Apparently, Gov. Perry believes that there is no significant difference between the Congress of the United States and the Texas legislature, which speaks volumes about his understanding of national governance,” said William A. Galston, an expert on governance with the Brookings Institution. “If anything, we need Congress to do more work, not less work.”
But U.S. legislators are “overpaid, overstaffed and away from home too much,” Perry said.
“I say send them home to live under the laws they pass among the people they represent,” he said, threatening to cut in half lawmakers’ salaries, then halve them a second time if they fail to submit a budget that would be balanced by 2020.
He also said he would cut the president’s salary in half until Congress passes a balanced budget.
Perry didn’t spare the federal judiciary from his disdain.
“Too many federal judges rule with impunity from the bench, and those who legislate from the bench should not be entitled to lifetime abuse of their judicial authority,” he said.
Under Perry’s plan, future judges would be appointed to 18-year terms.
“It’s a nonsensical proposal,” said Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. “It sounds like he is grasping at any effort to change the topic, to move beyond an absolutely abysmal performance in a debate.”
Perry has become a regular punch line on late-night comedy shows after last week’s debate, when the governor unveiled a bold plan that would abolish three federal agencies — but he only remembered the names of two.
“I don’t know how you recover from that,” Eberly said.
Perry also announced on Tuesday that if elected, he would privatize the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, end federal funding of Planned Parenthood and ban Congress from using earmarks.
He would further support legislation requiring a two-thirds majority for Congress to raise taxes and he would veto any bills that place unfunded mandates on states, local governments and schools, he said.
“Washington is so broken, Americans will accept nothing less than a complete overhaul of the way business is done in America,” he said. Perry even committed to cutting the president’s salary in half until a balanced budget is passed.
But some analysts said the proposals will not rescue a flagging campaign.
“These proposals are headline-grabbers, but they don’t compensate for his complete and total meltdown on national television,” Eberly said.
