A proposed amendment to the constitution of the United States of America

Subject: AN amendment relating to eligibility, terms, and limits for service in the Houses of Congress of the United States.

A person may serve up to 4 full terms of two years in the lower house (House of Representatives.) in his lifetime.He also may not stand for election after having served  7 years  in the house..

A person may serve up to three full terms of six years in the upper house (the Senate)
He also may not stand for election or reappointment after having served a total of fifteen years in the Senate.

For a person to be eligible for election to the Lower House he must have lived in his district for three years immediately previously and must have been present in his district either 275 days in the year previous to filing for the election or an average of three-hundred days or more over the previous three years. Current Incumbents of the US House seeking reelection are exempt from this qualification.

For election to the Upper Chamber, a person must have  must have lived and worked in his state for three years immediately previously and must have been present in his state either 275 days in the year previous to filing for the election or an average of three-hundred days or more over the previous three years. Current Incumbents of the US Senate seeking reelection are exempt from this qualification.

Upon the Decennial Census based reapportionment,an incumbent member of the House of Representatives may seek reelection to the same seat he currently occupies
 or one that either represents the incumbent's home of record from the previous term or an adjacent district that 3/8th's or more of the district's residents were in said Representative's previous district.

60 Thousand dollars

What is a family income of sixty thousand dollars a year?

$7000 in Federal income tax.
$5400 in a car note
$2500 in Car insurance
$3900 in Health insurance
$12000 in Housing
$5000 in Utilities
$2250 in fuel (18K miles)
$7800 groceries
$1800 clothing
$5200 Misc medical, dental, etc
$2400 in household insurance
$4750 for EVERYTHING ELSE

This is in TEXAS what about California or New York? 

Credit Scoring

If we cut off all the thumbs of America's babies, thumb sucking would cease. So a good cure for the scourge of thumb sucking would be amputation of the opposing thumb. Sounds really stupid. Sure, it would cure the problem, but it is not the best or even a reasonable solution.

Credit scoring works on a similar idea. The idea is the score indicates the risk. When the risk does indeed pan out then it must be true.

NOT so fast. The problem is just like payday loans, the higher the cost, the less ability one has to pay the note. You pick something to buy on  credit (a car, a home, or just a vacation) you apply for credit. Generally you can find someone who will finance you. The problem is that it may cost immensely more. So a person who has to pay a larger payment each month has more problems paying than someone with a smaller one? That in itself is logical.

I am not advocating that banks and finance providers blithely loan all the money they have to anyone with no REGARD TO RISK. There are two things that would help everybody No "not this amount" or even no "not any amount." This has to be tempered by decisions based on loan officers training and instinct. Often people with EXCELLENT Fair Isaac Scores default. Sometimes those with 4-hundred-somethings default. With the same income and  monthly payment amount, the reason the one with the better score does better is simply that he can get more credit to help him through the rough spots. The guy with the dismal score just has to take it on the chin and get behind. 


In a nutshell, I believe the accuracy of the FICO scores is more about the debt load the marginal or bad FICO score puts on a borrower than the predictability of the score.

My Visa Whine (Ongoing) E1 and H1 status

We have HUGE numbers of foreign doctors, nurses, and technicians. Are they smarter, more motivated, or more dedicated to study than their  US counterparts? No.

While federal grants, loans, and other financial aid do a good job of paying for education including very basic housing and living expenses, very few students from families of modest means manage to get through without working part of full-time. At the point that they reach graduation the idea of more school is mortifying. The process for getting into medical school is daunting. Even then many very qualified candidates are turned down due to the limits in the capacity of our medical schools. We don't have the capability to train more doctors here.

Now to nurses. Our problem in nursing is even worse. The biggest problem is that our brightest students do not even consider nursing. Why? It is still viewed at the high school level as a vocational program. Here in Texas the majority of the nursing programs are still in our community colleges. There are BSN and Even MSN programs, but still most beginning RN's are taught through vocational departments at our community colleges. Nursing students as a whole are older. They are the back to school types. RN's with 5 years of experience make 60K a year or more. Teachers make 40. A whole lot of Junior attorneys make less.

It is true we need more Doctors, Nurses and even engineers. We need to be training US students for these jobs. The key is be able to create capacity we need to pay teachers as much as they would make in practicing their craft. How do we pay for that? Clearly the flow of state and federal funds are stretched to their breaking point. The cost of a degree is outstripping the ability of the students to repay. Lenders are hesitant to loan students more as their education concludes as it is. Obviously higher tuition is not the sole criterion.

Here is a big part of the answer. Make the entities hiring these immigrants pay 10% of their total compensation or $20,000 per year whichever is greater.  Literally have the imported labor pay for the next generation of students. It may create a reduction in the availability of providers, but I think it would create a training thrust to offset it after only a year or two. My bet is that part of the reason they hire these professionals is as much about making more money as it is about having more providers.

We have to reduce the number of highly paid immigrants. To do this we have to train qualified American students!

Shame on you VH1

I went to two of the Pepsi NFL Fan Jam concerts. The one on VH1 was introduced as "from the Verizon Theater in DALLAS Texas."  At least the CMT Crossroads one two days later was from the Verizon Theater in GRAND PRAIRIE TX.

I think everybody is OK with the idea that the Superbowl is in DALLAS. But it was always "Cowboys Stadium in Arlington TX."

Beside that who in the world put Duran Duran, Kid Rock, and Jason DeRulo in the same bill? 

The reinvented wheel

Well, the reinvented wheel had a flat side. Getting into the stadium was harder than airport security (Monday after the Superbowl at DFW) . The NFL had control of  the stadium for nearly a month and the temporary seats didn't GET COMPLETED.

Jerry, Sorry the NFL spoiled your party.

Super Bowl : Reinventing the Wheel

The Cowboys had 110,00 for a game. Had 97.000 for a playoff game. There was a Cowboy's Game and a baseball game. A college football game and a World Series game. The traffic on Collins never turned to gridlock. The NFL is going to come in and reinvent the wheel. The traffic plans the city of Arlington and the Cowboys put together so carefully have been thrown out. So the NFL has created chaos out of order. Yes, a vast majority of the people are coming in from out of town, but a majority of the people who go to a Cowboy game are not from Arlington or particularly familiar with it. The city and the Cowboys just made it that darned easy.The Super Bowl will be fewer cars, fewer people, and fewer variables than the Cowboys and still it will likely be chaos. Why, because the NFL feels it has to reinvent the wheel.

I AM NOT a great Jerry Jones fan. He is the P.T. Barnum of the National Football League. Even if you aren't a fan of Barnum, he did create quite the circus. Jerry has promoted quite the team.  He made sure that from the very start that the Cowboy's Stadium experience was the best in the NFL. The NFL basically forgot all he learned and started over. Hope it goes well.

Here is a comment for Arlington. The TRE could have easily been ramped up for the Superbowl. It would have reduced the foot and car traffic in Arlington. A spur just south of Cowboys Way, would have been reasonable to put in. Absent that, a temporary station on the existent tracks around Cowboys Way at Stadium Drive would have only been two long blocks away. Either way, rail should have been part of this plan.

Security, I agree the site should be secure, shutting down Arlington  for three weeks is just arrogance on the part of the NFL and just gives potential evil doers time to figure the layout and security. It just seems to me that perhaps that the NFL is trying to create havoc just so they can say that it is bigger in every way than a regular season game. While 100,000 people from out of town is different than 100,000 locals,Cowboy fans are not locals to Arlington. It isn't that different. The biggest difference is that there will be more attempted fraud. Except for tickets, the visible things the NFL has done are negligible.