It’s the System That’s Out of Whack : Term Limits: Even if you throw these ‘bums’ out, government will still be doing things it shouldn’t do.

The reason term limitations are unlikely to contribute much to “fixing” our nation’s governance problems is that these failings are primarily rooted in what government is allowed to do, not in which members of government do it for how long. In other words, the central problem is that longstanding constitutional constraints limiting government power have been progressively eroded, so that it is no longer effectively prevented from violating the rights of its citizens. The resulting ability to do things for lawmakers’ friends at others’ expense leads to abuse of power regardless of how long any individual can stay in an elective office.

Consider Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which grants Congress the power to levy “uniform taxes” to provide for the “general welfare.” But today’s federal and state tax codes are riddled with discriminatory taxes designed to burden particular subgroups of the population. Further, a great deal of government spending, such as the multibillion-dollar agricultural price supports, are designed to benefit subgroups at general taxpayer expense. There is nothing in the Constitution even hinting that the use of general tax revenue for the provision of benefits to such special interests is a legitimate federal function. But this now forms one of the pillars of irresponsible government.

The increasing concentration of power in the hands of a few resulting from changes such as these has led to governance that is a far cry from one centrally concerned with promoting the general welfare, as envisioned in our Constitution. And concentrating that power further in long-tenured legislators can worsen the problem. But limits on terms in office address aspects of irresponsible government that are unfortunately too far from its core and would not solve the underlying problem of what amounts to government theft: the involuntary and unequal taking of property value.