photo (4)The government is shut down, we are in total debt crisis mode, no one likes congress, Cruz and Palin are the epitome of crazy-pants, and Obama apparently needs to put down the Quran. What a mess.

Since you asked…. what is my solution?

1. Term limits for Senate/House. Why? Because there is like a 9% approval rating and 90% re-election. This happens because districts/states have pretty consistent voters. For example, where I live: Illinois is almost always going to vote democrat. Lake County Illinois is almost always going to vote republican. It is very hard for an incumbent to lose an election when the person running against him/her is the opposite of what the state/district wants. Limit them to 2-3 terms! That way, they won’t be so motivated about getting re-elected or what their ‘party’ thinks. They may just vote for what is ‘right’. And, worse case scenario- they are gone in a couple years.

2. Set amounts for campaigns. I think the single best way to keep money corruption out of politics is to allow everyone the same amount of money for their campaigns. They still have to raise the money themselves, but this way it doesn’t just allow the richest candidate to win (or the candidate with the richest supporters). Not sure what the number should be, maybe $1 million for congress, and $4 million for president. I know this sounds crazy, but we need way less money in politics. This day and age, 90% of publicity is free! News, Internet, Social Media, etc. is cheap. We have a ridiculous deficit, people starving in our streets, and yet we are spending billions on campaigns. No more I say! Oh, and, you can’t keep the left over money from your campaign. That’s just crazy.

3. Three month election season. That’s right, no more 18 month political nightmares. You get three months. If you can’t get your message across in 3 months, you don’t deserve to be in office. Like I said above, with the speed of news, internet, twitter, etc. you don’t need time or money. You need a good message. 3 months, 3 debates (where you actually have to answer the questions), and done.

4. Once you lose, you have to play nice. The people voted for what they wanted. If you lose, you don’t get to pout in the corner until you get your way. It is your responsibility, your duty, to cooperate for the betterment of the country you vowed to serve. Admitting that you are going to stand in the way of progress should be considered treason! It is one thing to debate and negotiate, but if all we do is fight, only our most susceptible citizens suffer.

5. No more using ‘God’ as your reason for anything. You love Jesus? Great! I’m very happy for you. But, we have separation of church and state. You don’t get to use Christianity as your reason for political decisions. Morals, yes. Jesus, no. And, for the love of God (see what I did there), no saying that our founding fathers established this a christian nation. That is the opposite of true. Lastly, you can’t talk about your love for Jesus while condemning our poor, hating our gays, and killing human beings in war. WWJD?

6. No passing laws that don’t apply to the politicians that passed the law. For example, you want to drug test your welfare recipients, you need to pass one too. You suspend worker’s pay in a government shut down, your’s gets suspended too. You want to hold teachers accountable for their work, you need to be accountable for yours.

7. Being a congressmen should not make you rich. You should not vote to give yourself a raise. You should not get a life time of pay. You should not benefit from relationships with lobbyists and get a cush job for the rest of your life bringing in 6 figures for no work. That happens by the way… The more we keep money out of politics, the more we can ensure the politicians are in the job for the right reason. People don’t get into teaching because they want to get rich; they do it because they are passionate about the work and the money comes second. It should be the same for our politicians.

8. Non-medically trained, male politicians don’t get to talk about my lady parts. While I’m at, no non-medically trained female politicians either. This one should be so obvious that I shouldn’t need to say it, but alas, here I go. I can’t ‘shut this whole thing down’! Rape is not ‘a method of conception’. Vaccines don’t cause retardation. And, don’t you dare talk about what god wants for my vagina. I thought we already settled all of this?!

There, did I just solve all of our problems?