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Yes, aside from their senility, our politicians are simply way too out of touch to comprehend the average American's issues. Spent most of their life in politics with the easiest 6 figure salary (plus bribes) you can have.
Granted politicians will probably remain out of touch but I'd like to imagine it'd be better
Yeah. Hard for them to relate when they all grew into wealth, lived sheltered lives, spend all day doing office work/politics.
Let them live off of 40k a year and see how their demeanor changes.
No, because I would lower even further to 65.
Shit I'd go even lower. Gotta be young enough to have some skin in the game when it comes to the consequences of legislation, etc.
Fair enough, you're less likely to vote for shit policies if you know that you're going to be living with them. And even if you do vote for shit policies and end up living with them, it was entirely your damn fault. And you just brought it on yourself.
Let's do it slightly differently, let's make the mandatory retirement age for political office the median life expectancy age for the entire country. If the politicians, etc can manage to make everyone live longer, they can hold office longer.
Similarly, take away their separate and different medical coverage and put them on the same Medicare system everyone else in the country has to use.
Make it 75% the median life expectancy and it's a deal.
I love the idea but if anyone knows how to fudge numbers it's them.
It will only be a matter of time before you hear that the median life expectancy for Americans is 125.
I think they should also be paid using their state's disability/unemployment system and get food through their state's EBT system.
First I would support campaign finance reform and watch 90% of the problems be solved.
Then I would tackle the other 10% by making voting more accessible - especially in primaries. Make it so accessible that even young voters bother to do it. That way people will choose younger reps more often.
So no, I wouldn’t support putting a bandaid on one issue and ignoring the root causes.
75?
Fuck that. Social security retirement age.
Maybe don’t bring social security retirement age until it. They already want to raise that. This would just be another excuse to do it.
65 is what it should be. They have no fucking clue what most people need.
My parents are close to 65 and completely out of touch. If you turn 65 during your next term you should be ineligible.
Not just no, hell no.
People like to think that the seventies is when you automatically lose your ability to think and do anything useful. That's bullshit; it's individual, genetics combined with access to good nutrition, healthcare, etc.
I used to work as a nurse's assistant, specifically in home health where the patients were often at home with spouses, and other age peers. I had patients as old as their 90s that could still function mentally just fine, but had physical issues. I had patients older than that too, several just past 100, but they really wouldn't have been able to be a walmart greeter.
But even with the patients that did suffer cognitive difficulties, there were plenty of family members and friends that didn't. Most people suffer only minor cognitive decline in their seventies. Given otherwise good health, there's no necessity for someone without a diagnosis that would prevent them from doing their job to be forced to retire.
What we need are term limits, not ageist bullshit. The problem isn't age, or even a given political bent, it's the accumulation of power and influence that then becomes a commodity open for purchase, leading to corruption.
Now, I wouldn't object to mandatory fitness evaluations, but that's going to be as corruptible as anything else political. I certainly think some specific diagnoses should exclude someone from making decisions for the entire nation, that affect the entire world, but that's a tough thing to make happen, much less make work.
But age? Age is absolutely not a factor in fitness for any public office. Hell, I'm of the mind that none of the elected offices should have minimum ages, beyond a national age of adulthood so that the people in the position aren't immediately beholden to someone like a parent. Pick whatever arbitrary age you want for that, and we're good to go as long as it passes muster legally.
No, I would support it being locked to the national retirement age though, which would be 67 at the moment.
Wouldn’t that give an extra incentive to raise the retirement age?
That would give politicians another reason to raise the retirement age, in order to stay in power.
Yeah, but probably I’d make it lower (like 67) and allow exceptions with large majority (like a four year exception with a two thirds or three quarters vote of the senate).
I also think Supreme Court justices should have terms and term limits, and shouldn’t be allowed to receive gifts over a certain value (like $2,000).
No; it should be 60.
Lifetime appointments to the supreme court are obviously a mistake; the idea there is to make them secure in their jobs so they don't have to politik from the bench. It doesn't account for actually evil people digging in like parasites in the heart of our government. They should serve a single 10 year term, at which point no matter their age they must retire and then serve no further roles ever again. Like, you're not allowed to go be a senator, or a congressman, or a governor, or a Walmart greeter. You can volunteer to speak to law students, you can retire, or you can die. Minimum punishment for a sitting or former supreme court justice for any crime: jay walking, copyright infringement, speeding, embezzling, mass murder: instant death. The guilty/not guilty verdict is read to your firing squad. The members of our highest court should be nothing less than absolute exemplars of citizenship.
The house and senate should have maximum terms of not ten years each; the senate currently has 6 year terms, that would have to be shortened, possibly to four. Wouldn't hurt my feelings if we eliminated those mid-election years so we could have some time away from being screamed at by our so-called government. You want a full career in politics? You start at the local or state level, then you run for federal office.
I would make prior office a requirement for President. As far as I'm concerned, you have no business serving as president if you have not already been a senator, congressman, governor, state senator or general assemblyman. I do not believe town council or city mayor should count here because of the low barrier to entry for buying 10 acres of rural land and incorporating it as a town with one resident and electing yourself mayor.
It's not the age, the length, or how many times you've been reelected, but getting elected in the first place has such a high barrier, massive gerrymandering, and more.
I really do think term limits are a better solution than a hard age cap. Term limits would help address the age issue, and it would also make "career politician" a less viable career. That's a bigger problem imo - politicians doing politics for profit, as a career, rather than as a civic duty. That's a big part of why we have younger Republicans like MTG, Lauren Boebert, JD Vance, etc. whom a hard age cap would not effect for another couple decades at least.
Not an original idea by far, but I was chatting it up with a few friends recently about this and we thought a civic duty term made far more sense (think jury duty). So much needs to be fixed in the process, like the bill riders addons (a horrible scourge to our political system) and lobbyist (scum). But imagine you were picked (randomly) to serve for 3 year stints, with those getting picked for a 2nd and maybe even 3rd term, serving as some Senior politician. Clearly it needs much more thought, but far better potential because you have to participate and accountable.
Before you knock it down, think about the intelligence required here. Boebert is an absolute moron. Bills before the system need to be something the average person can understand (legal verbiage is such a pointless waste and almost unnecessary). You would need to participate in collaboration with others, understand how to be honest and forthcoming with your goals.
We can’t hold Politicians accountable (not the system today) and this could be an answer.
Nah, I don't think my issue is with age; it's with lifelong politicians. Introduce term limits.
Age is a huge problem. Older people have way more money and time than the rest of us, and they overwhelmingly campaign and vote for their own age bracket. That's why so much of our government is run by senior citizens, and so many of those elderly officials hold old-fashioned views. They represent their their self-serving out-of-touch voting base.
Term limits would help - I would support that across-the-board for just about every elected position - but we really need to make sure that the country is run by people young enough to actually care about the long-term consequences of their decisions. As it stands now, more than half of our representatives will be dead before the real-world results of their policies become apparent. That's not a good dynamic for governing a country of a third of a billion people.
We also need to level the playing field and make early voting universal and make election day a holiday to ensure that wealthy old white people aren't so much more enfranchised than younger Americans, the working class, and people of color.
Yes, but agree with most of the other comments here. It should be lowered to 65-67 instead.
65 to match Social Security.
If you set it to match social security age, the old fucks who want to stay in power will just up the social security age.
No I'm for term limits. Each presidential election the popular vote should go to decide the party that gets to nominate the next justice. The first one in has to retire at that same time.
I also think we should increase the size of the court and cycle in/out two every four years - somewhere around where we'd have 20 year term limits. Side bonus, I think it'd be a benefit for all of us that the court has a larger variety of voices and be more difficult to hack the way the GOP has this court.
Not a retirement age but to run for public office, I think the candidate should have at least 20 years of median actuarial life expectancy remaining. They need to make long-term decisions so they better be around to see how it goes. Right now this is age 60 for men and age 64 for women. In the future it may go as high as 70. If you really wanted to push it I think 18 years would be symmetrical with childhood. First 18 and “last 18” you can’t be in office.
No.
An alternative could be to set the limit to a percentage of average life expectancy, or some other variable, so the law isn’t as easy to ignore or mess with, the law can remain unchanged for decades and remain relevant without adverse effects (hopefully), and politicians are encouraged to improve the quality of life.
no. bernie is a great example of why age is no restriction to being a good politician. you people have to stop trying to use goose and gander legislation to stop conservatives. you stop conservatives by STOPPING CONSERVATIVES.
Bernie is the exception, not the rule. Even then, he may have good ideas, but if he ever had the power to realize his ideas, he'd be dead before we could assess if his ideas worked, and then we would move on to the next geriatric leader whose ideas will outlive them in short time.
I want someone with Bernie's ideas, but I really want this country run by a generation that doesn't have one foot in the grave.
Absolutely. Maybe younger. Politicians shouldn't be able to vote on issues that will have major effects that they won't have to live through. I also think we should disenfranchise people minus 18 years. Give politicians a reason to support policies that increase public health to increase the voting age.
I support this Pipe Dream.
Unfortunately, this isn't a Congress that will vote to limit its own power.
Not just retirement, put them in a machine that extrudes protein paste and use that to feed the next crop of legislators.
If you retire early, you don't get put in the machine.
No. I think age plays a factor into power dynamics (more time to accrue wealth and all), but not enough in our current life spans to be an issue.
Term limits though I support because the ability to manipulate the voting system for decades is far to enticing and creates perverse incentives.
People who bought a house and went to college for the same price of college nowadays do not know what the world is like today
Yes, because of the risk of elder abuse. And just being absolutely out of touch with the general population.
I wonder if it would be better to have a term limit. I don't really care if you are 125, but there should be a limit to how long you sit there with huge amounts of power. Especially since they aren't directly re-elected.
Cap it at 65, the current median retirement age. Set the standard that all adults 65 and older should be finished with their careers.
If the average citizen expects to be retired at that age, then nobody older than that ought to be working to govern the country.