<story><title>Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]</title><url>https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/_landings/contract/O-TRU-102316-Contractv02.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JosephHatfield</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t see how elections themselves aren&amp;#x27;t term limits. You want to end someone&amp;#x27;s reign, vote them out. Am I missing something?</text></item><item><author>josho</author><text>Trump railed against the system that allowed politicians to be bought. It turns out his solution is to term limit congress. Sounds like treating a symptom not the root cause.</text></item><item><author>noobermin</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s a lot of room to wonder about his trustworthiness given his record as a businessman, but even in this document, he doesn&amp;#x27;t address campaign finance reform. Congressional term-limits just consolidate power in the moneyed elites--the problems &lt;i&gt;is not just&lt;/i&gt; the politicians, it&amp;#x27;s who corrupted them. If anything, this is a document to passify those moneyed interests who, unlike say Sheldon Adelson, worry about a Trump presidency.&lt;p&gt;Everything I&amp;#x27;ve seen so far suggests Trump isn&amp;#x27;t what blue-collar voters ordered for.</text></item><item><author>knowaveragejoe</author><text>Some of this sounds great - term limits on congress, a measure to reduce the revolving door effect of government officials going into lobbying.&lt;p&gt;Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don&amp;#x27;t think too hard about it.&lt;p&gt;The scariest things for me are the backing out of climate change accords and the opening up of additional shale&amp;#x2F;gas&amp;#x2F;etc resources. We really don&amp;#x27;t need to be heading in that direction, energy-wise.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>laughfactory</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re missing the incumbent bias. It&amp;#x27;s well known we prefer the devil we know to the one we don&amp;#x27;t--even if we objectively have good reason to dislike the incumbent.&lt;p&gt;Which is to say if, after electing someone to office, we immediately 1) forgot we voted for them, and 2) became completely unaware of their continuing existence and actions in office only then would elections be truly a sufficient substitute for term limits. Otherwise, given the choice, enough votes will be cast to keep the incumbent in office just because he&amp;#x2F;she is familiar. The thinking seems to go something like: well, that&amp;#x27;s the name I recognize, and hey, the world hasn&amp;#x27;t come to an end in the past few years, so... why not. Let&amp;#x27;s just keep &amp;#x27;em. Versus this other person who might do all kinds of things I can&amp;#x27;t foresee and may not like.</text></comment>
<story><title>Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]</title><url>https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/_landings/contract/O-TRU-102316-Contractv02.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JosephHatfield</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t see how elections themselves aren&amp;#x27;t term limits. You want to end someone&amp;#x27;s reign, vote them out. Am I missing something?</text></item><item><author>josho</author><text>Trump railed against the system that allowed politicians to be bought. It turns out his solution is to term limit congress. Sounds like treating a symptom not the root cause.</text></item><item><author>noobermin</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s a lot of room to wonder about his trustworthiness given his record as a businessman, but even in this document, he doesn&amp;#x27;t address campaign finance reform. Congressional term-limits just consolidate power in the moneyed elites--the problems &lt;i&gt;is not just&lt;/i&gt; the politicians, it&amp;#x27;s who corrupted them. If anything, this is a document to passify those moneyed interests who, unlike say Sheldon Adelson, worry about a Trump presidency.&lt;p&gt;Everything I&amp;#x27;ve seen so far suggests Trump isn&amp;#x27;t what blue-collar voters ordered for.</text></item><item><author>knowaveragejoe</author><text>Some of this sounds great - term limits on congress, a measure to reduce the revolving door effect of government officials going into lobbying.&lt;p&gt;Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don&amp;#x27;t think too hard about it.&lt;p&gt;The scariest things for me are the backing out of climate change accords and the opening up of additional shale&amp;#x2F;gas&amp;#x2F;etc resources. We really don&amp;#x27;t need to be heading in that direction, energy-wise.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>KirinDave</author><text>Systems that rely on voters being exhaustively educated are brittle and prone to manipulation.&lt;p&gt;The challenge of term limits is that they hurt effective politicans the most, so it&amp;#x27;s always got to be a balancing act.</text></comment>