Ending the deficit in 5 minutes

Now this makes a whole lot of sense to me. Let the OWS crown focus on something as useful as this.

Warren Buffett, "I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all
sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election. The 26th
amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months
& 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in
1971...before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc. Of the 27 amendments to
the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the
land...all because of public pressure.

Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of
twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do
likewise.
In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the
message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.

*Congressional Reform Act of 2011*

1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office
and receives no pay when they are out of office.

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All
funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security
system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system,
and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for
any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans
do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay
will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the
same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American
people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12.
The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen
made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor,
not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours
should serve their term's), then go home and back to work.

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take
three days for most people (in the U.S.) to receive the message. Maybe it is
time.

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!!!! If you agree with the above, pass it on.

Sounds good to me. :thumbsup:

I agree with some of it, have seen it before and doubt it was originated by Buffett.

Term limits would be simpler and a good start.

3% of GDP is too low a bar, I want balanced budgets and a reserve fund.

JMO....IF the individuals in power truly wanted to clean up this fuber,THIS revision would have been accomplished along time ago.....so,
in real terms......the conclusion here is this,the individuals in power do NOT want to correct the problem,they wish to extend the problem for their OWN gain(read collusion).

I'm going to agree with homeagain on this one... this could be a real quick fix, but the people who reap the benefits of this system would have to vote to give up the benefits of the system. I don't see that happening at anytime in the future.

Along the same lines, though, I would like to see public servants at this level have caps on their income. I know that sounds contrary to my fiscal beliefs, but in this role they need to be serving the country, and not their individual checkbooks. A Congressman should be able to make a maximum of a certain amount ($200,000?). It doesn't matter if it is from special-interest groups, lobbyists, etc., they will take in a total of that much without equivocation or exception (well, except re-election fundings, still don't have an answer for that yet...). That way, it doesn't matter if an interested-party pays them... they'd get exactly that much from the goverment if nobody paid them, so there is nothing to gain by corruption of the system.

But for either my plan or the one presented (Buffet's or not), we'd need to throw out the current representatives or have them pass a law that "new" congressman could not be eligible for the old-system benefits, because they'll never vote themselves away power and money of any kind.

If nothing is done to their exorbitant pensions, changing them doesn't help, it adds to the deficit.

Doubtful that is from Warren Buffet. He has companies that make a lot of money from federal contracts, I doubt he wants to stop that gravy train.

I'm not so concerned about whether it originates with Buffet or not. The basic concept of our representatives working for us and doing right by us is what is important. To think that our representatives are going to do anything that is not beneficial to them or (heavens forbid) make them work in the real world is pure folly. The only way anything like this will materialize is through a popular uprising that essentially throws out the self-serving people we have there, set into motion the new legislation and then elect new politicians who will be prevented from altering the terms of office and benefits. Exactly what the details are supposed to be is open for discussion. RCCL makes some interesting points for consideration. Joe had his thoughts on the matter. I see this much like brainstorming. Any idea is put down without debating its merits. Debate follows once all ideas are out. Having said that. The folly of the exercise is it's unlikely to ever gain a foothold, unless .. our economy totally tanks and everyone gets royally pissed off enough to actually force a change.

According to Snopes, it did originate with Waren Buffett, though the part about "Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise." was not from him.......

Sorry, but you guys are just stupid, ill informed, ignorant or a combination of all three....Were gonna threaten them with not being reelected? That'l do it? Here's how you solve all our problems overnight

Get their F-ing dirty money out of our politics

http://www.publicampaign.org/