White House Raises Signature Threshold for 'We the People' Petitions: Good Move or Bad Idea?

As it was before, at 25,000 people, it was not truly representative of what the nation would like to happen.

Small increment by Small increment your civil liberties shall be obscured then diminished then made inapplicable. Small seemingly insignificant acts by government, such as the reduction of access to petition by increasing qualification requirements will ultimately result in the loss of such rights.

Bureaucratic Governments, like Laissez Faire capitalism are ultimately and inevitably monopolistic in nature. They both depend on the concentration of wealth and power for thier survival.

We were originally a Constitutional Republic under which our nation and its economic structures flourished. inevetibly, due to the nature of bureacracies and the resulting priviledged capitalism we find our purchasing power diminishing and our Liberty restricted and compromised.

To change the current trends we might try prayer, however, I think tough political campaign regulations and universal term limits would be more effective.

Get a grip and stop the theatrics. President Obama is the first President to use the We The People petition program. The petitions are not guaranteed in the Constitution, the petitions did not exist prior to 2009, and unless you had someone else type your nonsense above, you can still contact the White House. The program has had other changes since it began and it will undoubtedly change again in the future. Cry me a river over something important.

U.S. Constitution - Amendment 1

Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Your welcome

You are more silly with each of your posts. It is hilarious that you claim your right to exercise your freedom of speech was limited by a program that still exists, by a program that began in 2009, and by a program that is not a law. Keep those silly comments coming!

Thank You; happy to see you are entertained and not offended by the words "and to petition the Government" in the first amendment..

All that aside, it may be arqued that it is the activity of those persons that rigorously and vociferously oppose any ecncroachment upon the United States Constitution that make it possible for many others in the population to continue to freely make myoptic remarks without recrimination.

When Kept in sharp perspective those folks and their myoptically reasoned remarks may serve as comprators for the rise of reason.

Silly. Knee slapping silly. You can petition the government in the same manner as before. The constitution said "to petiton the Government for a redress of grievances" but the Constitution did not specify 10,000 signatures or a million signatures. Keep those silly comments coming.

Congratulations on your ability to maintain a humerous perspective, it is supposed to be good for ones indigestion.

Once again, In the First Amendment to the United States Constitution consider the words "prohibiting the free excersize thereof; or abridging" as they are a critical aspect of the intent of the First Amendment.

these few words make it quite clear that, among others, the right to petition the Government shall not be reduced, curtailed, obfuscated or made subject to the whim of criminals, politicians or political science professors.

Keep on keepin' on. Adios.

If there are 100k plus signatures, maybe our otherwise clueless congress and senate will realize the point of the petition is something to consider.

My petition: CONGRESS, SENATE AND ALL OTHER GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES MUST BE SUBJECT TO SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE AND ESPECIALLY OBAMACARE WITH NO OTHER OPTIONS AVAILABLE.

They already are.

They have their own medical plan and they receive federal retirement in addition to social security (FERS). You are correct on FICA, my error.

The retirement plan for all federal employees, except military personnel, is the same. The formula factors maximum rate of pay, years of federal employment, and a numercal factor. Retired members of Congress do not receive a pension that is equal to their pay when they were in office. The medical benefit for all federal employees, except military personnel, is the same, on a region for region basis. If you have a member of Congress living in your area they may visit the same clinic as you and they may pay a similar family coverage as you; they can participate in a choice of PPO and HMO plans. All federal employees, excepty military personnel pay into and receive benefits from Social Security as do workers in private industry. Hundreds of thousands of private citizens who are retired receive a pension/401K and Social Security.

FERS is a defined benefit plan. This is the costliest type of retirement plan and private sector abandoned this due to cost in the in the 1980s. The current federal health insurance is much better than most private plans. The average small business plan deductible exceeds $3000/yr., yes three thousand. And in the private sector most companies require the employee to pay at least 20% of their own cost AND 100% of any dependent costs. Government employee benefits are much richer than private sector plans. Congress and Senate retirement benefits are far beyond what is offered in the private sector. Congress and Senate just vote themselves massive raises and more benefits while doing less than a mediocre job of what they were elected to do!

Congress raised their pay in 2009 to $174,000. Raises prior to that took them to $141,000 in 2000, and $136,000 in 1989. Federal employees pay 1/3 of their health premiums and the government pays the other 2/3 of the premiums; for Congress and for all other federal employees.

More than 21,000 retired federal workers receive lifetime government pensions of $100,000 or more per year, a USA TODAY/Gannett analysis finds.

Of these, nearly 2,000 have federal pensions that pay $125,000 or more annually, and 151 take home $150,000 or more. Six federal retirees get more than $200,000 a year.
Some 1.2% of federal retirees collect six-figure pensions. By comparison, 0.1% of military retirees collect as much.

OK, I bite. Name the retired members of Congress whose federal pensions are more than their final salary.

Don't have that info, just hope it's not Barney Frank.

Just as I suspected. I responded to your incorrect tirade and now you seque into nonsense. Good bye.

Retirement benefits for congress http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mi...

25,000 is what percentage of the population of what state? Needless to say in the day of social media, getting 25,000 people behind a wild idea is not very daunting. If the death star can raise 25,000 signatures in a 30 day time frame, how many other time consuming, money wasting ideas can draw that type of response?

It is We the People. As in of the the People, By the People and For the People
Not Me Obama. Of Obama, For Obama and By Obama.
Pure and Simple.

Obama showing his cowardice and his disdain for patriotic Americans. When petitions he disagrees with reach the 100,000 limit, he'll raise it to 250,000; what a pantywaist little candy-ass we have for POTUS.

You are knee slapping silly. Tell us some more silly stuff.

Crackpots are a waste of time. Isn't that right all you retarded secessionists?

Sounds like the solution they used on the radiation contamination from Japan, When they
discovered the tuna caught on the west coast was contaminated. They just raised what the safe level of radiation is for our food. And the raised it hundreds to thousands of times, depending on the type. THERE ARE NO SAFE LEVELS OF RADIATION TO FEED OUR CHILDREN!

This will give more time for President Obama to take 7 million dollar vacations every few months to play golf while the country is in a financial crisis, We the people go hungry living from paycheck to paycheck while Obama throws our money away as an obvious insult to all Americans who pay taxes. it is a signal that the Progressive party wants the government employee to be in the highest income bracket , receive waivers and tax breaks while everyone else goes hungry paying for their exorbitant lifestyle.

Do you realize the topic of this blog is We The People petitions? Nothing you wrote makes any sense with the topic.

There should be an undecided option. Of course, some of the petitions may not be important, and this is a good way of rooting them out, but on the other hand, no government can be too busy to listent ot what the people want.

Just another way to avoid answering question from "We the People"...

Responding to the "Death Star" question , should have been one word... "NO... Instead it was over answered....

Stupidity abounds all over , understand that and get on with life...

The death Star is a balloon platform with a laser they already have them and they aren't very expensive,

Neat!

just trying to make it harder to petition. since they decide what to respond to will it matter.they will do what they damn well please anyways.prove youre honest mr president pass the proposed amendment 28 that says congress shall pass no law upon the peole that does not equally apply to congress. and no lawsfor congress that dont apply egually to the people its on fair, no special tratment just because the can vote it for themselves.

Owebama got bombarded so he is trying to make it more difficult. Go figure.

Who can blame him when he has crackpots like you crawling out of the wall every 5 minutes with your psychologically disturbed nonsense?

LOL - yep we should all just lay down and die and not try to defend ourselves - NOT!!

Defend yourself from what? You're the ones attacking any sort of progress. He's the one defending us from you.

We the people are trying to defend ourselves from a 16 trillion dollar debt and NO JOBS! Businesses will not invest in this socialistic, business unfriendly climate. Why would they? People can get hand outs - why work?

I never thought I would ever lower myself to actually quote a Republican, but in the words of the criminally disgraced Spiro T. Agnew , you are a" nattering nabob of negativism."

Just telling the truth. Spiro went down in disgrace - remember>