Of a full-time congress, and I’m sick and tired of people complaining about gridlock. Gridlock is good since about 99% of the time as all these 535 men and women, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives do is SPEND OUR MONEY.

You see, there are no more laws that really NEED to be passed, voted on, argued about or debated. Bank robbery, fraud, mail theft, etc., (federal laws) are all already illegal. Why do we need these shmucks in Washington FULL-TIME?

The Texas legislature USUALLY gets all their business done in 140 days every TWO years. The state of Texas economy would rank in the top 10 economies in the world if it were its own country.

I think the U. S. Congress could do it in about the same... let’s say in 140 days EVERY year, which is actually double the time. Even that would be acceptable.

Oh yeah, no retirement or pension except social security, of course. Serve your district, do your job on the ONE or maybe two issues that we sent you there for, and then go home and let someone else get the job done on the next SINGLE ISSUE that we need passed.

I’ve been told that prior to the Nixon Watergate scandal this is somewhat how Congress operated, although I’m not old enough to remember and I can’t seem to find out these little facts on the internet. If you know and you can tell me where I can find this out for a fact, why don’t you e-mail me?

Think about it. These 535 people who take (at gunpoint - and if you don’t believe that, try not paying income taxes) BILLIONS of dollars from us every year and spend it on any whim they see fit. My church “receives” and only “asks” for 10 percent. Where does an over powerful centralized federal government get off on taking more than God?

I hear a lot of talk about national sales tax, and it is always followed with the statement that it is revenue neutral. Its advocates spend a lot of time proving or explaining how it is revenue neutral. I have a really novel idea. Why don’t you explain how it will decrease revenue to the centralized, over powerful, federal government and I’ll work my %*@ off for your cause. Otherwise why should I care about trading one flawed system for another.

Same with the flat tax. I propose my own two-tier “flat tax.” Not a single person should pay more than 10% income tax and no matter how little you make you should pay 5%. That’s it. You earn or make a capital gain or make a dividend--no matter where it comes from, and it totals $100,000 or more a year, then you pay 10% income tax. You earn less than $100,000, then you pay 5% income tax - period.

We don’t need to go changing the people in congressional districts to get this done. All we need is two people in every state that are sharp, pretty much agree with us, use common sense (don’t refer to the worst of their colleagues as “my good friend”), and have no skeletons, i.e. squeaky clean. That is only 100 people and it really shouldn’t matter where they live in an entire state, or if they ran as Republicans or Democrats.

They could run as independents that are fiscal conservatives with the goal of devolving the federal government and returning government to local control. Thirty-three Senators are up for re-election every two years. Therefore, over a short six-year period we could have common sense changing the federal government or STOPPING--just gridlock the legislative process with the power of the filibuster--it from running amok.