Perry Pitches Part-Time Congress

Texas Governor Rick Perry today detailed a new plan to significantly reform the size and scope of the federal government.

In a speech to voters in Bettendorf, Iowa, Perry proposed turning Congress into a part-time job for lawmakers, ending lifetime appointments for federal judges and abolishing a trio of federal agencies that he said would help balance the nation’s budget.

And yes, this time he remembered all three departments he’d cut.

The plan is lofty, to say the least, but Perry’s camp hopes it will catapult him back into contention in Iowa, where voters will participate in a primary caucus less than two months from now. The one-time frontrunner has a world of ground to make up in the Hawkeye State, where a new Bloomberg poll released today showed him tied for sixth place among all GOP candidates at seven percent.

The plan he unveiled today goes beyond perhaps any other recent proposal to change the structure of Washington, with all three branches of government — the executive, the legislative and the judicial — subject to massive restructuring.

Perry said he’d impose term limits on “unelected” federal judges because “Too many [of them] rule with impunity from the bench, and those who legislate from the bench should not be entitled to lifetime abuse of their judicial authority.”

He pitched cutting the salaries and schedules of lawmakers and their employees in half. “Congress is out of touch because Congressmen are overpaid, over-staffed and away from home too much. Americans have had enough.”

Perry argued that lawmakers have “abused the public’s trust,” citing a recent ‘60 Minutes’ report that linked members of Congress to insider stock trading. He called on lawmakers to outlaw the alleged practice.

“Any Congressman or Senator that uses their insider knowledge to profit in the stock market ought to be sent to jail – period.”

In a stunningly embarassing moment during a debate in Michigan last week, Perry failed to remember one of the three federal agencies he’d do away with as president. Today, however, he had no such trouble.

“We will eliminate agencies that perform redundant functions. I will get rid of the Commerce Department, the Department of Education, and the Department of Energy,” he said.

Perry accused the Transportation Security Administration of harassing “law-abiding travelers,” and proposed privatizing the department. He said he would audit the entire federal government and look closely for waste in the defense budget. He also pledged to put a hold on all pending federal regulations, end the government’s conservatorship of twin mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and reduce salaries by 50 percent for “every bureaucrat except our military and law enforcement.”

Following Perry’s speech, critics lampooned the measure.

When informed of some of the particulars of the proposal, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) rhetorically responded, “is this a serious plan?” Hoyer then suggested that Perry is merely “pandering to the Tea Party.”

And in his summary of the plan, The New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny referred to it as “radical.”