Commentary: Young, Braun And A Bad Idea For Indiana
By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com
INDIANAPOLIS—Indiana’s two Republican U.S. senators, Todd Young and Mike Braun, have an idea.
They want to impose term limits on members of Congress—two six-year terms for senators and three two-year terms for members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Young and Braun have signed on to an effort by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, that is both pandering and quixotic to amend the U.S. Constitution to include such term limits.
It’s an effort doomed to failure, but getting it embedded in America’s founding charter really isn’t the point.
It’s a chance to play to the suckers in America’s political game, the less-thoughtful citizens who think holding a gun to their own heads is a meaningful threat to others. Because they buy the argument that all government is bad all the time, they’ll chop off their own limbs just to stub the toe of the state.
I never have liked the notion of term limits, but then, that’s because I’ve never been enthusiastic about limiting the choices people can make at the ballot box.
I’m even less fond of telling them they aren’t responsible for those choices. If we free people don’t like the government we’re getting, then it’s our job to turn out at the polls and fix it—and not count on some deux ex machina to save us from ourselves.
If we elect idiots, well, that just means we’re getting the government we deserve.
The government we have earned.
Because we made the decision to put those idiots in the positions they occupy.
Self-government is just what it sounds like—a do-it-yourself project. When we break it, we have to fix it.
Ourselves.
This is true everywhere in this nation, but it is particularly true in a state such as Indiana.
Because we are a relatively small state without a huge population or vast reservoirs of wealth, we cannot count on the weight of numbers or an abundance of cash to protect our interests.
Our only hopes for exerting influence over events are through force of reason—and we have seen how effective rationality is in today’s Washington—or by building influence over time.
When people analyze the career of the late U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, most of the attention focuses on his efforts to make the world a safer place and particularly on his historic partnership with U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Georgia, to keep weapons of mass destruction from finding their way into the wrong hands.
This is understandable. Lugar’s disarmament work was a huge achievement, one that had beneficial implications for the entire world.
But it also overshadows his other accomplishments.
Not the least of them was that he largely shaped agricultural policy in the United States during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The policies he crafted were helpful to farming states.
Such as Indiana.
Lugar was able to exert that sort of influence because he served for a long time. He was in the U.S. Senate for 36 years. Over that time, he developed not just expertise in manipulating the machinery of government but the relationships that greased the wheels of that machinery.
If he hadn’t been able to serve for six terms, this state would be poorer.
More important, many Hoosiers—many farm families—would be poorer.
It’s easy to understand why Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas, would be in favor of term limits. The state with the second-largest population and second-largest economy in the United States never will have a problem making its voice heard or getting its needs addressed.
It’s the smaller states that need the protections longevity provides. The chance for our senators and representatives to accrue influence levels the playing field.
Perhaps Cruz and another big-state Republican senator, Marco Rubio of Florida, who is pushing this constitutional amendment, grasp that.
It’s clear, though, that Indiana’s two senators, Todd Young and Mike Braun, do not get it at all.
And that’s a pity.
FOOTNOTE: John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.
THE CITY-COUNTY OBSERVER POSTED THIS ARTICLE WITHOUT OPINION OR EDITING.
Typical MSNBC nonsense from Comrade Krull. At least the journalism professor is consistent.
Krull is left of Bernie and AOC.
You’re an idiot. There should be term limits so we have a choice in our government… not our government controlling the people. Term limits!!! I agree
I agree Term limits!!! I’ll sign up!!
Make up any reasoning you can but the citizens of this country are not uneducated fools as you think. Corruption is obvious by the financial standing of every Congressman or Senator when they leave office. The ridiculous salaries, vacations, holidays, healthcare, pensions, etc.
controlled only by themselves is out of control. Vote for term limits or expect to be unemployed next election.
Obviously, John Krull is a Dem hack and naive at best. Our founding fathers never intenddd for career politicians and stepped aside with honor and integrity. These ancient establishment forever polticians are useless, corrupt, sess pool sell outs that are puppets to PACs, big corps and foreign adversaries. Biden, Pelozi and Schumer are the kingpins on display. Voters are mind controlled by decades of status quo propanda and academia. WOKE is the walikng dead!
I disagree with your article wholeheartedly! The swamp needs to be replenished regularly! You are ignorant!
Term limits is like “You’re doing a good job, but we want to try someone different just in case they will do a better job.” I’m sure everyone in favor of “term limits” would like to see it applied to their job as well, right?
It’s been my experience those calling for “term limits” mean term limits for the Party or politician they disagree with…you know, the other guy.
There are term limits in place already and they’re in the National and State constitutions. They are called “elections”, and if the majority sends the same person back election after election, blame living in a democracy within a republic.
As much as it saddens me to actually agree with Krull, this time the blind pig has found an acorn.
Priceless!
Put me in this guy’s column on this subject.
BRAVO!….
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