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From the same article: Clinton ended up revoking the order (so his order basically did nothing), and Obama gave waivers even to the previous, watered down 2-yea

From the same article: Clinton ended up revoking the order (so his order basically did nothing), and Obama gave waivers even to the previous, watered down 2-year version. This new order has considerably more teeth than anything that came before, though of course it remains to be seen if Trump grants any exemptions, or follows what was promised on the campaign trail to the letter. If he does, and if he manages to get congressional term limits passed as well, DC will be in a much healthier state once the current crop of entrenched geezers vacates the premises.

noobermin 10y ago
Or, he could do what the previous presidents have done, rescind the order once he leaves office.
- general_ai 10y ago
  For better or worse, he's not like the previous presidents in nearly every way.
nkozyra 10y ago
> If he does, and if he manages to get congressional term limits passed as well, DC will be in a much healthier state once the current crop of entrenched geezers vacates the premises. Why would an arbitrary restriction on representative government = a healthier state? Look, I think there are grand problems in the electoral process that lead to the same people getting elected forever. That produces an environment conducive to career politics and incites people to pursue that path over public service. But the public voting for representation is not the problem. The baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater.
- handedness 10y ago
  Whether or not one agrees with it, the idea of arbitrary restrictions on representative government is at least as old as George Washington himself. Were the USA a direct democracy it would be pretty easy to refute the idea of term limits, but as it's a democratic republic, the issue becomes far less clear cut.
  - nkozyra 10y ago
    Even direct democracies have restrictions; it's the arbitrary ones that need some real validation to support. Just cause "throw all the bums out" feels good does not mean it's sound policy for a republic.
    - pzxc 10y ago
      It was arbitrary for George Washington to decline to run for a third term as President, feeling that two terms ought to be enough for anybody. And it took over a century for that wisdom to be codified into the 22nd Amendment.
    - handedness 10y ago
      It doesn't require much abstract thinking to see how legislators (and chief executives) could craft policy to guarantee their reelection. Places without term limits are good examples of how policy can ensure reelection. Whether or not one agrees with it, the concept, at least, of term limits, isn't wholly without merit. It may be feckless, it may be antithetical to the direct democracy many Americans inaccurately assume they live in, but it isn't inherently just some partisan, feel-good policy. This particular implementation of the concept may be, but that's a separate conversation.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    Congressional representatives are chosen directly by the people in their districts. Aside from judges, are there any federal office holders or appointments that don't have term limits or serve at the pleasure of the current administration?
    - phonon 10y ago
      Head of CFPB? Can't be removed by the President. Also, President can't fire SEC commissioners
      - gozur88 10y ago
        From the wiki page: "The CFPB was initially established as an independent agency but it effectively became an executive agency after a federal appeals court found that the President of the United States' power to remove the CFPB Director had been unconstitutionally limited." And while the president can't fire an SEC commissioner, there are only five and one comes up for reappointment every year. By the end of his first term Trump will have the opportunity to replace four of them.
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  So I used to oppose term limits for Congress until I saw a very interesting argument: The longer you have been in power, the longer the list of prior decisions and positions that you must defend, or else admit you were wrong. And so you end up clinging to bad positions, opposing good laws and good repeals, or supporting bad laws and bad repeals, because your own political fortunes are tied up in having been correct the first time around.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    Being called a "flip-flopper" guarantees one cannot learn from experience.
    - nkozyra 10y ago
      It's amazing how a potentially valuable human attribute has been branded as a political handicap.
      - manquer 10y ago
        Well it depends.. if you vote someone for his current stance towards something I would expect he keep it whether he personally has changed view or not . If you vote for someone on their ability to think and act , for thier character I would expect them to change. Usually it a combination of both so there is no simple answer
        marcoperaza 10y ago
        Also, you want these people for their good foresight. Hindsight isn't quite as useful.
  - xbmcuser 10y ago
    Look at how the presidents behave in the 2nd term. They know that they don't need to get reelected so are willing to do the right thing more than pandering to their donors. Currently other elected officials have to balance what their voters want with what their donors want and side with the donors. But the biggest problem with US currently is two party system where their is huge us against them mentality republicans vote republican and Democrats vote democrat. So politicians from both sides are unwilling to vote across party lines as that would kill their chance of getting reelected. If they don't need to run again they will be more willing to compromise.
- general_ai 10y ago
  Ok, got it, you want Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell running things forever. It's a bold strategy, let's see how it works out for you.
  - Analemma_ 10y ago
    Holy Fallacy of the Excluded Middle, Batman!
    - general_ai 10y ago
      You just don't hate those two particular geezers enough. One ran the Democratic Party into the ground (and got rewarded for it with another term as the leader of House Democrats), and another makes Emperor Palpatine look like Mother Theresa. One is 76 years old, another is 74. They should long have retired if they had any decency whatsoever. Anything that shows them where the exit door is will receive my enthusiastic support.
      - cmurf 10y ago
        That's fine but what does it say about their constituents? First it's a handful voting for each in their respective primaries; second a substantial number of eligible voters who do not care enough to participate in that primary. And then more than half of the eligible voters who don't care enough to participate in the general election. So why disable the ability of those willing to participate to re-elect the person they want?
        general_ai 10y ago
        It says that their constituents don't really give a shit about the finer points of things. It also doesn't help that the longer the congress critter stays in congress, the more power they seem to amass, Frank Underwood style. So after 15-20 years they bring in a ton of pork barrel cash to their district, and ensure indefinite reelection until they keel over and die. That's might seem like a good deal for that district, but it's, IMO, not a good deal for the country as a whole. This is similar to how most eligible voters don't give a shit about electing the president. If Obama could run indefinitely, assuming he managed to not screw up really badly, it'd be a piece of cake for him to get re-elected in perpetuity a-la Putin, simply because it's much easier for the incumbent to win (even goddamn Dubya won!), and he'd be able to adjust the laws to his liking with the support of his party in Congress when they have the majority.
dragonwriter 10y ago
Both term limits and lobbying bans for officials shift the balance of power, experience, and skill to private lobbies and away from the people doing public work, and so would leave Washington in worse shape in terms of ability to serve the public interest than the atrocious status quo. The root of the current problems is in the way the structure of the electoral system fails to achieve effective representation, and none of those address that one bit. They are naive solutions that appeal to people who have a shallow understanding of the symptoms but no grasp of the problem.
- dllthomas 10y ago
  > Both term limits and lobbying bans for officials shift the balance of power, experience, and skill to private lobbies and away from the people doing public work This is clear to me for term limits, but how does it apply to lobbying bans? (Not arguing that it doesn't, but would like to understand.)
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Most political appointees expected term of office is tied to their party controlling the appointed office (and often times the person that appointed them doing so, as even another person from the same party will want to bring in their own people.) Thus, people who consider taking these offices need to have the ability to get other work need to have work they can do in between political appointments, so if you ban them for an extended period from the broad class of out-of-government jobs that the experience and skills developed and used in their public work would be most applicable, then people with viable alternatives are just not going to work in the public sector at all, unless they are so independently wealthy that they don't need work at all.
    - dllthomas 10y ago
      Interesting.

noobermin 10y ago

Or, he could do what the previous presidents have done, rescind the order once he leaves office.

general_ai 10y ago
For better or worse, he's not like the previous presidents in nearly every way.

nkozyra 10y ago

> If he does, and if he manages to get congressional term limits passed as well, DC will be in a much healthier state once the current crop of entrenched geezers vacates the premises. Why would an arbitrary restriction on representative government = a healthier state? Look, I think there are grand problems in the electoral process that lead to the same people getting elected forever. That produces an environment conducive to career politics and incites people to pursue that path over public service. But the public voting for representation is not the problem. The baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater.

handedness 10y ago
Whether or not one agrees with it, the idea of arbitrary restrictions on representative government is at least as old as George Washington himself. Were the USA a direct democracy it would be pretty easy to refute the idea of term limits, but as it's a democratic republic, the issue becomes far less clear cut.
- nkozyra 10y ago
  Even direct democracies have restrictions; it's the arbitrary ones that need some real validation to support. Just cause "throw all the bums out" feels good does not mean it's sound policy for a republic.
  - pzxc 10y ago
    It was arbitrary for George Washington to decline to run for a third term as President, feeling that two terms ought to be enough for anybody. And it took over a century for that wisdom to be codified into the 22nd Amendment.
  - handedness 10y ago
    It doesn't require much abstract thinking to see how legislators (and chief executives) could craft policy to guarantee their reelection. Places without term limits are good examples of how policy can ensure reelection. Whether or not one agrees with it, the concept, at least, of term limits, isn't wholly without merit. It may be feckless, it may be antithetical to the direct democracy many Americans inaccurately assume they live in, but it isn't inherently just some partisan, feel-good policy. This particular implementation of the concept may be, but that's a separate conversation.
- gozur88 10y ago
  Congressional representatives are chosen directly by the people in their districts. Aside from judges, are there any federal office holders or appointments that don't have term limits or serve at the pleasure of the current administration?
  - phonon 10y ago
    Head of CFPB? Can't be removed by the President. Also, President can't fire SEC commissioners
    - gozur88 10y ago
      From the wiki page: "The CFPB was initially established as an independent agency but it effectively became an executive agency after a federal appeals court found that the President of the United States' power to remove the CFPB Director had been unconstitutionally limited." And while the president can't fire an SEC commissioner, there are only five and one comes up for reappointment every year. By the end of his first term Trump will have the opportunity to replace four of them.
marcoperaza 10y ago
So I used to oppose term limits for Congress until I saw a very interesting argument: The longer you have been in power, the longer the list of prior decisions and positions that you must defend, or else admit you were wrong. And so you end up clinging to bad positions, opposing good laws and good repeals, or supporting bad laws and bad repeals, because your own political fortunes are tied up in having been correct the first time around.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  Being called a "flip-flopper" guarantees one cannot learn from experience.
  - nkozyra 10y ago
    It's amazing how a potentially valuable human attribute has been branded as a political handicap.
    - manquer 10y ago
      Well it depends.. if you vote someone for his current stance towards something I would expect he keep it whether he personally has changed view or not . If you vote for someone on their ability to think and act , for thier character I would expect them to change. Usually it a combination of both so there is no simple answer
      - marcoperaza 10y ago
        Also, you want these people for their good foresight. Hindsight isn't quite as useful.
- xbmcuser 10y ago
  Look at how the presidents behave in the 2nd term. They know that they don't need to get reelected so are willing to do the right thing more than pandering to their donors. Currently other elected officials have to balance what their voters want with what their donors want and side with the donors. But the biggest problem with US currently is two party system where their is huge us against them mentality republicans vote republican and Democrats vote democrat. So politicians from both sides are unwilling to vote across party lines as that would kill their chance of getting reelected. If they don't need to run again they will be more willing to compromise.
general_ai 10y ago
Ok, got it, you want Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell running things forever. It's a bold strategy, let's see how it works out for you.
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  Holy Fallacy of the Excluded Middle, Batman!
  - general_ai 10y ago
    You just don't hate those two particular geezers enough. One ran the Democratic Party into the ground (and got rewarded for it with another term as the leader of House Democrats), and another makes Emperor Palpatine look like Mother Theresa. One is 76 years old, another is 74. They should long have retired if they had any decency whatsoever. Anything that shows them where the exit door is will receive my enthusiastic support.
    - cmurf 10y ago
      That's fine but what does it say about their constituents? First it's a handful voting for each in their respective primaries; second a substantial number of eligible voters who do not care enough to participate in that primary. And then more than half of the eligible voters who don't care enough to participate in the general election. So why disable the ability of those willing to participate to re-elect the person they want?
      - general_ai 10y ago
        It says that their constituents don't really give a shit about the finer points of things. It also doesn't help that the longer the congress critter stays in congress, the more power they seem to amass, Frank Underwood style. So after 15-20 years they bring in a ton of pork barrel cash to their district, and ensure indefinite reelection until they keel over and die. That's might seem like a good deal for that district, but it's, IMO, not a good deal for the country as a whole. This is similar to how most eligible voters don't give a shit about electing the president. If Obama could run indefinitely, assuming he managed to not screw up really badly, it'd be a piece of cake for him to get re-elected in perpetuity a-la Putin, simply because it's much easier for the incumbent to win (even goddamn Dubya won!), and he'd be able to adjust the laws to his liking with the support of his party in Congress when they have the majority.

dragonwriter 10y ago

Both term limits and lobbying bans for officials shift the balance of power, experience, and skill to private lobbies and away from the people doing public work, and so would leave Washington in worse shape in terms of ability to serve the public interest than the atrocious status quo. The root of the current problems is in the way the structure of the electoral system fails to achieve effective representation, and none of those address that one bit. They are naive solutions that appeal to people who have a shallow understanding of the symptoms but no grasp of the problem.

dllthomas 10y ago
> Both term limits and lobbying bans for officials shift the balance of power, experience, and skill to private lobbies and away from the people doing public work This is clear to me for term limits, but how does it apply to lobbying bans? (Not arguing that it doesn't, but would like to understand.)
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Most political appointees expected term of office is tied to their party controlling the appointed office (and often times the person that appointed them doing so, as even another person from the same party will want to bring in their own people.) Thus, people who consider taking these offices need to have the ability to get other work need to have work they can do in between political appointments, so if you ban them for an extended period from the broad class of out-of-government jobs that the experience and skills developed and used in their public work would be most applicable, then people with viable alternatives are just not going to work in the public sector at all, unless they are so independently wealthy that they don't need work at all.
  - dllthomas 10y ago
    Interesting.