I think it should be younger. Maybe 65.
Members of Congress and SCOTUS should also have term limits
I agree on the legislature, but not the court. The legislature has to plan for the future. Their age should be below the average life expectancy. They need to have a foreseeable future for us to allow them to plan ours.
I would resolve the instability of the court by eliminating its fixed size. One new justice shall be appointed every other year. In the odd-numbered years, between election cycles.
This will tend to increase the size of the court over time. The average term length is currently about 16 years, but that is with strategic retirements. I would expect the average term to increase to 24 to 36 years, leaving us with a court of 12 to 18 justices.
I’m onboard with 65 as the maximum age anyone can run for Congress but I don’t have a problem with people 65+ finishing their terms provided they’re actually competent. I’d like to see mandatory cognitive decline testing for anyone running for Congress, appointed to the SC or appointed to any high position in the executive branch.
It’s absolutely ridiculous that we’re allowing people with 5-7y remaining life expectancy to plan our future 20, 40 or 100y our - they just don’t have the skin in the game that someone in their 20s of 30s does.
On top of all of that I’d like to see vigorous corruption testing, SC justices and congresscreatures shouldn’t be bought and paid for the way they are now.
Yeah that sounds reasonable. You can at most finish your current term once you’re past 65. And term-limit everything, Justices, whatever.
Honest question, what do we do that we are now living longer, and have better quality of life and medical advancements? With AI progressing exponentially, this will likely increase average lifespans in developed countries. You might be arguing against your own comments here when you hit 65 and realize you still maintain mental acuity and are thriving.
Personally, I feel like we should be spending our time and focus on fixing a number of other issues. Namely lobbying, special interest groups tied to anti-consumer companies, ‘slap on the wrist’ fines for billion dollar companies, predatory lending, student loans. I mean the list goes on. These things aren’t an age problem, it’s a corruption problem.
You might be arguing against your own comments here when you hit 65 and realize you still maintain mental acuity and are thriving.
I’m not running for office nor scotus. But if I were, I’d hope reason would dictate sensible policy, not magical thinking about whatever far-off technological theoretical you might imagine.
Then you are not apprised of history.
In 1900, the average life expectancy of a newborn was 32 years. By 2021 this had more than doubled to 71 years.
But life expectancy has increased at all ages. Infants, children, adults, and the elderly are all less likely to die than in the past, and death is being delayed.
This remarkable shift results from advances in medicine, public health, and living standards. Along with it, many predictions of the ‘limit’ of life expectancy have been broken.
I’m not saying we’ll be doubling lifespans, but if you looked at the big picture, we’ve made HUGE strides and advances in a very short period of time. Especially if you consider how long humans have been around. Now we have CRISPR gene editing for example, and very obviously artifical intelligence/machine learning will grow exponentially fast.
This is not “magical thinking” about “far-off technological” theory. This is modern day and recent history, and already we expect global life expectancy to increase by nearly 5 years by 2050 despite geopolitical, metabolic, and environmental threats.
I also didn’t say anything about ignoring policy, and pointed out several areas I personally feel could use attention. However that is my own opinion… Just like you on running/not for office.
I’m glad you have a hobby tracking the historical progress of life-extending technology, but I find your entire premise to be a straw man.
I have no concern about them not living long enough. So your magical “maybes” and “it could happens” are completely irrelevant.
“After many decades of civil service, it is time for the state to give back to our hard working representatives. Therefore they will be retired in januray of the year following their 65th birthday”
“January 6th has for the last few years been a reminder of an embarrassing moment in our history, well no longer! January 6th shall henceforth be known as a day of celebration, celebrating not only long and faithfull service but also new talents, skills and hope for the furue! Join us, as we once again rejuvinate our government to keep our nation strong and dependable!”
Yes, aside from their senility, our politicians are simply way too out of touch to comprehend the average American’s issues. Spent most of their life in politics with the easiest 6 figure salary (plus bribes) you can have.
Granted politicians will probably remain out of touch but I’d like to imagine it’d be better
Yeah. Hard for them to relate when they all grew into wealth, lived sheltered lives, spend all day doing office work/politics.
Let them live off of 40k a year and see how their demeanor changes.
Let’s do it slightly differently, let’s make the mandatory retirement age for political office the median life expectancy age for the entire country. If the politicians, etc can manage to make everyone live longer, they can hold office longer.
Similarly, take away their separate and different medical coverage and put them on the same Medicare system everyone else in the country has to use.
I think they should also be paid using their state’s disability/unemployment system and get food through their state’s EBT system.
And have to live in section 8 housing while in DC
Wonderful idea.
Oh hell yeah.
Force them to use the public option. Make a law to specifically disallow all congresspersons from enrolling in private insurance for as long as they hold office. Violation of that restriction is immediate ejection from the relevant legislative chamber.
We would have single payer by next Tuesday.
Make it 75% the median life expectancy and it’s a deal.
Yes I’d like to vote for your policies
I love the idea but if anyone knows how to fudge numbers it’s them.
It will only be a matter of time before you hear that the median life expectancy for Americans is 125.
No, because I would lower even further to 65.
Shit I’d go even lower. Gotta be young enough to have some skin in the game when it comes to the consequences of legislation, etc.
Fair enough, you’re less likely to vote for shit policies if you know that you’re going to be living with them. And even if you do vote for shit policies and end up living with them, it was entirely your damn fault. And you just brought it on yourself.
+1
75?
Fuck that. Social security retirement age.
Let’s compromise and make it 69.
Maybe don’t bring social security retirement age until it. They already want to raise that. This would just be another excuse to do it.
First I would support campaign finance reform and watch 90% of the problems be solved.
Then I would tackle the other 10% by making voting more accessible - especially in primaries. Make it so accessible that even young voters bother to do it. That way people will choose younger reps more often.
So no, I wouldn’t support putting a bandaid on one issue and ignoring the root causes.
Should make voting a week long thing so people have more time to go. The last day should be a national holiday.
Not just no, hell no.
People like to think that the seventies is when you automatically lose your ability to think and do anything useful. That’s bullshit; it’s individual, genetics combined with access to good nutrition, healthcare, etc.
I used to work as a nurse’s assistant, specifically in home health where the patients were often at home with spouses, and other age peers. I had patients as old as their 90s that could still function mentally just fine, but had physical issues. I had patients older than that too, several just past 100, but they really wouldn’t have been able to be a walmart greeter.
But even with the patients that did suffer cognitive difficulties, there were plenty of family members and friends that didn’t. Most people suffer only minor cognitive decline in their seventies. Given otherwise good health, there’s no necessity for someone without a diagnosis that would prevent them from doing their job to be forced to retire.
What we need are term limits, not ageist bullshit. The problem isn’t age, or even a given political bent, it’s the accumulation of power and influence that then becomes a commodity open for purchase, leading to corruption.
Now, I wouldn’t object to mandatory fitness evaluations, but that’s going to be as corruptible as anything else political. I certainly think some specific diagnoses should exclude someone from making decisions for the entire nation, that affect the entire world, but that’s a tough thing to make happen, much less make work.
But age? Age is absolutely not a factor in fitness for any public office. Hell, I’m of the mind that none of the elected offices should have minimum ages, beyond a national age of adulthood so that the people in the position aren’t immediately beholden to someone like a parent. Pick whatever arbitrary age you want for that, and we’re good to go as long as it passes muster legally.
I agree with the Idea that being in a position for too long increases the possibility of corruption. But, I’ll counter with two thoughts:
1.) Shouldn’t people have the ability to vote for who they want to represent them? If the people of Vermont want to keep on
rejectingelecting Bernie Sanders, why should they not be able to? (Valid counterpoint- Dianne Feinstein)2.) This is the less trivial one - I fear that term limits would invite more corruption, as the representatives understand they only have a limited amount of time to grease as many palms and make as many connections as possible in their limited amount of time in office. We already have issues with the lame duck period, and those are currently measured in weeks. I can only imagine what I’d be like if a large portion of reps had full lame duck sessions.
Term limits have been shown to create ‘brain drain’, and ultimately what winds up happening is that that legislators must focus on career growth - either spending their time in office campaigning for the next elected position, or looking to opportunities beyond politics. It takes time and experience to become skilled in crafting bills that don’t have adverse effects and cannot be overturned or lawyered to do things they aren’t intended to do.
The net result is that it creates a slew of amateur legislators, and professional lobbyists, as legislators are forced to retire just as they become skilled at the job.An alternative to a retirement age is mental/physical fitness reviews, but that’s also tricky. If there isn’t a defined process then unscrupulous people will just use a doctor of choice to get the results they want, but if there is a process, politicizing that process to serve one party or the other could mean using mandatory retirement to force key vacancies.
I do think that at some point we need to pry the hands of people off the levers of power, and I can’t think of a way that is as ‘non-corruptible’ as a set age limit. It would not always be personally fair, but it would probably be for the greater good.
Note: I am not an expert in anything. Go ahead and ignore me. I’m just a random person thinking about and answering the prompt. These are just my ill formed opinions, feel free to CMV (even though I don’t take a hard stance) but please be respectful.
Maybe. I lean towards yes that at a certain point you’re way too old to be effective but I feel like the age caps and term limits arguments have some good points in multiple different positions. Which is my roundabout way of saying there are good points on either side but I hate saying that because of the connotations associated with it but here we are.
Anyway.
One argument I think actually holds water and relates to your question is: what age is the cutoff, and why did you pick it?
What criteria merits an age cap? If someone who met or exceeded the cap was able to “pass” the criteria you used for determining that number, what justification then do you have to deny them eligibility? “Because we said so” isn’t a good justification and amounts to age discrimination.
Also, now I fully admit this is a slippery slope fallacy but: once a limit is adopted, the barriers to changing that limit are lessened. Meaning if you cap it at 75 and society undergoes a significant cultural shift it is much easier to reduce it to 45 since there is a framework in place. Yes, this is a fallacy, but one I believe has some bureaucratic believability albeit in a very pessimistic Logan’s-Run-esque sense.
Counterpoint though: there are age minimums for certain positions like the presidency (probably others but I’m not sure) and the same fears of manipulation of the cutoff shenanigans have never born fruit. That said other age barriers are undergoing challenges so… it’s a bit muddy but something worth discussing. Yes, I just countered my counter point.
The current system is supposed to be that candidates run on merit and the people choose whom they believe is the best fit to represent their interests. This is supposed to counteract the election of unfit candidates. Which we clearly see has broken down in places (for a non-inflammatory example: that place that elected a dead person).
I don’t have a solution and all of this is to say it seems like common sense that at some point you have to be too old to do a demanding job like those listed, but when you sit down and try to define where the boundaries are the conversation gets complicated.
No. Some of the worst politicians are young. Some of the best politicians are old. Age isn’t a problem. Undemocratic systems and bad politics are problems.
Not a retirement age but to run for public office, I think the candidate should have at least 20 years of median actuarial life expectancy remaining. They need to make long-term decisions so they better be around to see how it goes. Right now this is age 60 for men and age 64 for women. In the future it may go as high as 70. If you really wanted to push it I think 18 years would be symmetrical with childhood. First 18 and “last 18” you can’t be in office.
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Not just retirement, put them in a machine that extrudes protein paste and use that to feed the next crop of legislators.
If you retire early, you don’t get put in the machine.
I feel bad for that machine
President
No.
- I think that 75 is already too old, especially because they won’t let go of their positions until their terms end even after the “mandated” age of retirement (unless the law specifically forbids taking a position you won’t be able to complete)
- Politicians will argue that this age is either too young or too old and will either never update this law, or update it so often it becomes meaningless.
An alternative could be to set the limit to a percentage of average life expectancy, or some other variable, so the law isn’t as easy to ignore or mess with, the law can remain unchanged for decades and remain relevant without adverse effects (hopefully), and politicians are encouraged to improve the quality of life.
