A week of rants, part I: How to save millions in the Federal Budget

Eliminate the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives was born from the idea of states with larger populations having a greater say in the goings on of government. They wanted this because during the era of time when the Constitution was being drafted, the states had to compete with each other for governmental resources and  favor. But this is no longer the case. A single state, or group of states, cannot gain favor without affecting the other states as well. The welfare of all the states is tied together.

There are 435 representatives. The salary of a representative is about 174k a year. Speaker gets 223k. The majority and minority leaders get 193k. That's
(432*174)+(223)=(2*193)
That's 75M+.223M+.386M

76 millions dollars spent on just the salaries of the HoR. That doesn't include operating costs, salaries to pages, ect. That's just salaries. Health benefits and pensions aren't included.

Why are we spending this money? We are the only Republic government in the world (that I know of) that has two legislative bodies. It's a waste.

It also bogs down the system. The senate easily passes bills. It takes more than twice as long for bills to pass the House than it does for them to pass the Senate, even when the bills are wildly popular ones. Part of the reason for this is the fact that the entire house is up for re-election every 2 years, and popular opinion swings quite far, and very quickly. (Another thing about american culture I strongly dislike.)

So how do we fix this?

We eliminate the House of Representatives. We keep just the Senate. But, in order to keep the accountability in the Legislative Branch, we add a 3rd senator from each state. This way, we have one senator from each state up for re-election every 2 years, as it is with the entire HoR, but only less than one-half would be up for re-election, so bills would still pass the senate. Plus, the extra salaries would only add $8.7M in extra salaries for the Senate, which is MUCH lower the the $76M. $67.3M lower, to be exact.

It will never happen, but I can dream, can't I?