It’s a Gray Area:

You probably do not need to hear much from me to convince you that our government is broken. The problems come directly from Congress and our state legislature, and the evidence is all around us. It was Thomas Jefferson who told us that we should have a revolution about every generation to keep special interests from being solidified in government. We should have listened. And Alexis deToqueville famously observed that the American Republic would endure until the day Congress discovered that it could bribe the public with the public’s own money. Unfortunately, that day has probably arrived.

For example, for the past decades Congress and our state legislature have been passing gimmicky budgets that simply ignore fiscal problems and pass them along to some unspecified time in the future. Why does this continue to happen? Because politicians are only truly concerned about the next election, not the next generation. That is what our system encourages. But as a consequence, the federal budget deficit for 2010 is projected to be $1.35 trillion, and the state budget deficit for 2009-10 is about $6.3 billion, and it has a projected budget deficit for 2010-11 of $14.4 billion. So what can or should we do about this dire situation?

Well, the first thing to do, short of electing more Libertarians to office, is to have a state constitutional convention that would incorporate some specific changes into our state government. That, in turn, would probably galvanize the rest of the country to get serious about the federal government as well.

What changes should be made? First, we should follow Texas’ lead and have our legislature in session only every other year. Texas has its legislature in session only in every odd year, which has some poetic justice to it. At these sessions, the legislature would be required to pass two-year budgets.

In addition, we should also follow the lead of the government of British Columbia that requires each bill literally to be read three times on the floor of Parliament before it can become law. The first time is mostly for show, and most members of Parliament are not present. But the second reading is done only one paragraph at a time, and that is followed by a debate and a vote on just that language alone. Then the third reading takes place before a vote on the entire measure.