Today's Situation in a Nutshell

I've talked quite a bit here about how many of the problems faced by our country have to do with the fact that the people running things may have plenty of political experience, but little actual time spent in the productive part of society.

I've meant to blog more about this recently, but time has been at a premium. Thankfully, there are others out there who share this opinion, and The Anchoress states it very well:

[T]hat is the problem in a nutshell. Our government is top-heavy with people who have never “done” anything.

The Obama administration is loaded down with academics and lawyers who have spent their lives theorizing about things like economics, markets, social order and crisis management–and criticizing methods with which they disagree–but who have little practical experience in doing.

In fairness to the White House, many members of congress (and their leadership) have never done anything but talk, pose and run for office, too, but perhaps it behooves a president to have a few people in place who know how to (as any successful capitalist would) find the people who have an acquaintance with practical applications and who know how to yell, and how to dig in with both unmanicured hands.

Admittedly, it is difficult to put such people in place. Can-do capitalists are jawboners; they tend to want to lead, rather than fall-in-line. But any administration should have a couple of them discreetly in the background, so that when things hit the fan, there are more than mere theorists on board.

And a commenter to that post, who goes by the handle of "J" lays out a possible solution to this problem:

I’m generally not big on changing the constitution, but I’d support a change that barred anyone who hadn’t spent at least half of their adult life working in the private sector from holding any federal elective office.

Well said. And I'll repeat my own response to "J" here: It’s time to diminish the unproductive class in dramatic fashion and let members of the productive class be in charge. (The only reason this doesn’t happen more often is because those in the productive class are too busy, well, producing things.)

It’s also a good argument for term limits for all in government, legislator and bureaucrat alike. Start out in the productive sector, learn a skill that can be shared with the government for a brief time, and get back to producing things again.

A lot of us out here don't want the amount of government we currently have; few truly need it, and none of us can afford it. It's time to give everyone in government a 15% pay cut across the board, with the potential for more cuts based on productivity and accomplishment (or, more precisely, lack thereof)*. It's time to cut the bureaucracy in half; anyone who receives their salary the public dime needs to be working very, very hard. And the term-limits-for-all idea described above needs to be implemented as soon as possible.

These ideas need to be shared with those who are running for office in November; elections have consequences, and it's time for the unproductive class to be shown the door.

*I realize that raising or lowering pay based on productivity rather than number of years spent on the job would require that the influence of unions be cut to the bone. I consider this a feature, not a bug.