This week, as the 117th Congress of the United States began its term, I made the following case for parliamentary term limits in The Spectator.
Drawing upon my experience of Capitol Hill in the office of outgoing Congressman Ted Yoho, I argue that term limits would allow our politicians to focus less energy on the task of campaigning and devote more effort to the job of law-making.
One of the greatest challenges to necessary policy reform is a lack of political courage. When our politicians become more concerned with winning elections than with delivering upon a given policy platform, their role as the people’s representatives begins to come into question.
[…] we could do with a few more reformers – people prepared to take bold action in the public interest to address our nation’s greatest challenges. This is exactly the sort of leadership that term limits allow. […]
Particularly in an era in which the solution to every public policy problem seems to be to liberally hand out taxpayer dollars while saddling future generations with the burden of ever-increasing debt and inevitably higher taxes, we need leaders who will commit to potentially unpopular and even career-ending policy reform.
How our governments – and governance – could be improved by term limits
My other pieces in The Spectator can be accessed at: https://www.spectator.com.au/author/xavier-boffa/.
