{"id":5584,"date":"2024-02-07T03:18:50","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T08:18:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/?p=5584"},"modified":"2025-09-19T13:55:44","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T17:55:44","slug":"d-c-s-most-expensive-retirement-home-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/politics\/d-c-s-most-expensive-retirement-home-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"D.C.\u2019s Most Expensive Retirement Home: Congress\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US electorate has some serious daddy issues. Scratch that, Grandaddy issues. The ever-rising age of our representatives isn\u2019t a fluke but rather the product of a gradual fossilization over the last century, eroding the hallmarks of robust representation and fundamentally threatening American democracy.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Age isn\u2019t always an issue \u2014 I have no doubt my grandfather would run rings around me academically \u2014 but, sometimes the sad truth of human mortality renders it problematic. The concern of old age in our politicians could be mitigated by a solution that would also have the added effect of putting to pasture the other burden in Congress: people who never leave. This solution? Term Limits.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The founding fathers warned against career politicians, instead envisioning statesmanship in government like a national service. The role of a politician, then, should be a short-term employment, a commitment to recompensing the nation for its contribution to the individual \u2014 usually after or sandwiched between stints in the private sector. Dr. Ben Carson, former presidential candidate, stated on Meet the Press that \u201cOur government was set up for citizen statesmen, not for career politicians.\u201d But politicians like him are few and far between. Whether you loathe, love, like, or haven\u2019t the foggiest clue who he is and what he stands for, behind him are real, tangible achievements \u2014 truly a rare dinosaur in the Jurassic Park that is the US Capitol. He is a pioneer in the field of neurosurgery, responsible for the first separation of twins conjoined at the head and the first neurosurgical fetal surgery (and a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient to boot). Politics came after he built the resume, after the real experience, after real results in the real world.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While some would argue that the benefits of experienced career politicians far outweigh the costs, I must disagree. What are these benefits? I\u2019ll concede there is value in wisdom, knowledge, and experience. By its very nature, the legislative branch encourages gridlock, and sometimes pushing the sludge through the pipes requires the skill of people who understand how the game works. Indeed, representatives who have spent their life in Congress hold a web of friendships that often bridge the chasm between the parties. This knowledge comes in the form of congressional procedure, experienced campaigning skills, and understanding the language, form, donors, lobbyists, committees, parties, factions, interest groups, and more. Essentially, the political class. Defenders of the status quo point to the perks of having a senior established representative for their constituents as these members are more likely to hold better committee assignments and provide for their district by engaging in the destructive drug of pork barrel spending.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I wholeheartedly agree that wisdom is useful, and older representatives provide an invaluable font of knowledge that is constructive to good policy and conducive to public service. In a democracy, we should never seek towards the edges. I\u2019m inspired by a speaker who visited our campus to spread some light on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Rabbi Bachman provided important insights into the conflict, but perhaps his most noble argument was his defense of the radical middle. Our leaders should not just be willing but striving for compromise. Compromise takes a rebuke of short-term self-interested thinking and a devotion to becoming the noblest statesman. When gazing upon Congress today, some of the youngest members, wrapped up in ideological idealism, are the least productive. They embody the all-or-nothing mindset promulgated by the extremes of both sides in today’s America. Ask yourself what that mindset forgets: the other 50% of the country that disagree. Many of these younger members of Congress who simply lack exposure to experience and wisdom, like Matt Gaetz, MTG, Ilhan Omar, and AOC, produce no policies and merely further divide. Democracies that forget to listen and love thy neighbor are short-lived and beneath us. I do not seek to deny that there are plenty of radical members of Congress whose age racks up. However, these members seem to be few and far between, and it makes sense that as we age, we become more amicable. As we return from Thanksgiving, we can see how the benefit of life experience allows us to work with people who differ politically and close the gap of partisanship. Families are smaller cells reflecting the makeup of this country \u2014 they disagree, they argue, but despite this, we try to work together. Perhaps the older you are, the more amiable you become, and, as such, the longer you spend in Congress, the more willing to extend a hand of friendship to fellow members across the aisle. If this, is in fact the case, having older and more politically experienced representatives helps democracy. Thus, I won\u2019t deny the merits of the case opposing term limits.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But in practice, this argument tends to be a pipe dream. Experience for experience\u2019s sake is worth nothing. Would you re-employ the financial manager who lost a fortune? The plumber who flooded a house? The cleaner who left a home dirtier than before? What about the failed politicians who have lost, stolen, and abused their responsibilities simply because they have \u2018experience\u2019?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is political experience worth when most people aren\u2019t all that happy with the State of our Union? One would think expertise in other forms of employment, more reflective of the 330 million plus Americans who don\u2019t list \u2018politician\u2019 in their tax forms, might be worth more.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As of July 2023, Congressional approval rating stood at 19%. For the American public, Congress is more irritating than eczema. In January, it took an unprecedented 15 rounds of voting to choose a Speaker of the House. As of today, Senator Tuberville, one man, is holding up over 300 critical military appointments and leaving 3 US military branches without Senate-confirmed heads. Meanwhile, the Congressional Research Centre has found that reelection rates hover \u2018between 95 and 100%\u2019 and since the beginning of Congress, \u2018The average representative tenure has nearly quadrupled.\u2019 Those who posit that the high incumbency rate suggests public support for career politicians, place overwhelming faith in so-called American democracy, bought and paid for by billionaire oligarchs and plagued by corrosive practices like gerrymandering. Because of the undue influence of money in elections and the entrenchment of the political overclass, the incumbent, usually older or simply well<\/span>–<\/span> versed in Machiavellian political gamesmanship, almost always wins, despite demonstrable unpopularity. These permanent Washington representatives, who only defend their donors and become more aloof to the common man, mean that as politicians serve longer, Congress becomes more dislikable.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The argument that political experience confers superior knowledge is similarly dubious. Basic common sense assumes that your representative must have as much knowledge of what affects you as possible, to properly represent your interests. With every additional year spent in government, politicians seem to be losing touch at an alarming rate, simply because they don\u2019t live like you do. 52% of Congress are millionaires compared to 5% of the American public. Secured salaries and lunches with lobbyists are a necessary part of the job, but how long until that changes someone? One example is that of Representative Maxine Waters, from California’s 43rd district. Well, in truth, she\u2019s not actually <\/span>from<\/span><\/i> there; instead, Representative Waters\u2019 $6 million mansion lies in California’s 37th district. As Water\u2019s enjoys her castle on the hill, 1 in 5 people living in her district are below the poverty line, and 1 in 3 children live in poverty. At 85, she is currently serving her 17th term in the House of Representatives. How fit is she to serve?<\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, the issues affecting Boomers and Generations X, Y, and Z are all different. The desires of younger people \u2014 facing a future more uncertain than most of our predecessors \u2014<\/span> ought to be reflected, or at the very least heard. But when the Senate’s median age is 65.3, and the House\u2019s median age is 57.9, Congress hardly represents a country whose median age is 38.1. This leaves far too much room for key issues important to younger voters to fall through the cracks.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, we must approach the most important truth, a controversial one: some people are just too old. There\u2019s something depressingly humorous in watching Joe Biden fall off a static bike, Mitch McConnell model for Madame Tussauds and Dianne Feinstein forget how to vote. But we can no longer ignore how deeply troubling it is. The sitting president of the United States is 80. Ask yourself, would you be happy letting your 80-year-old Grandfather run the world’s most powerful economy, military, and nuclear arsenal? The president randomly shakes hands with the air, naps at COP 26, falls over not once, not twice, but thrice on the Air Force 1 steps, tumbles at the Air Force Graduation, shouts \u201cGod Save the Queen\u201d a year after her death at a gun control event in Connecticut, and exclaims that \u201cAmerica can be summed up in one single word: \u2018ashssfffurrrddtifosncascation.\u2019 I hate to break it to those in his party who claim that Biden is mentally cognitive, but that ship has sailed, wrecked, and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. This presents serious national security concerns. Unfortunately, the world has its fair share of despot dictators and strongmen who respond to strength or intelligence, and Biden, simply isn’t the picture of strength or intelligence. Might Putin have been more cautious if the president weren’t senile, or the Taliban in Afghanistan, or China and North Korea? Leaders and academics have argued such, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and international relations specialist Kevin Roberts.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I do not object to the elderly being in office; they can bring valuable life experience to leadership and policy. However, it is when they begin to lose their faculties \u2014 something clearly evident in some of our politicians \u2014 that I pause. I also object to the permanent-class of long-term career politicians in D.C. Introducing term limits to Congress would flush out the latter and heavily protect against the former, for should someone new to politics be elected in their seventh decade, they remain limited in how long they can serve.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Nancy Pelosi announced her intent to seek reelection at 83 years old, with 36 years in Congress, we ought to remind our representatives that sometimes, the most noble thing to do and the best way to serve their country, is to step down. Should they refuse to listen, we drag them off by the scruff, in the form of clear, constitutionally amended term limits.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US electorate has some serious daddy issues. Scratch that, Grandaddy issues. The ever-rising age of our representatives isn\u2019t a fluke but rather the product of a gradual fossilization over the last century, eroding the hallmarks of robust representation and fundamentally threatening American democracy.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Age isn\u2019t always an issue \u2014 I have no doubt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":696,"featured_media":5585,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/696"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}