[protomyth]

Term limits won't do anything except cycle the politicians faster. There are two systems that need to be cut in DC to change the tenor.

The first is the cycle of government employees overseeing contracts and then going to work as lobbyists or employees for the people they were overseeing. Passing an amendment that says no government appointee or senior staff member can go work for any company they had contact with while holding the position for 5 or 10 years will end the first cycle.

The lobbyist / I need $ for reelection is harder. Some say only government funded campaigns, but I'm pretty sure I don't want the government's current parties making those rules and frankly it doesn't seem to help elsewhere. I am more for an amendment that says groups (corp or union) cannot contribute money to politicians / political parties. Both corporations and unions are gatherings of people and no more deserving of protection than the other. The biggest problem with all that is the news media is run by corporations and the ink is still going to be there. I'm afraid the second cycle is going to be with us for a long while.

[maxerickson]

That seems like it might have some negative effects on the pool of people willing to take those jobs.

One thing that would probably help but will never happen would be to figure out how to make committee chairs service positions that had less influence over the output of the committee than the other members.

[protomyth]

> That seems like it might have some negative effects on the pool of people willing to take those jobs.

Good. I think the people using these government jobs in this manner are the people we don't need overseeing those contracts.

[maxerickson]

I don't think you can make enough rules to stop the wrong sort of people. I guess I would prefer amending the overall process to make it less interesting to even try to exploit (rather than enumerating and banning a bunch of different ways of collecting the reward).

Also, a 10 year ban is worth negative hundreds of thousands of dollars to the sort of person that is competent and understands the field they are working in. That's a pretty big disincentive, never mind that 'government job' already sort of has a negative association for lots of motivated people.

[protomyth]

I think two simple bans will have a huge effect on the corruption. I just don't see it as good for society that a competent person goes to work for the government in a management position then leaves for the private sector to work at a company they were managing contracts. I would rather the motivated people stay in the private sector in the first place and not see government as a stepping stone.