As a cost saving measure should we reduce membership in the U.S. Congress?

Actually, I think we should increase the number of Congressmen. The Founders intended that we should have a Representative for every 30,000 people. Instead, we have the least representative lower house in probably any Western democracy. Britain has 650 members of the House of Commons. In Canada, there are 308. Both countries have much smaller populations.

If we had 1 member of the House for every 30,000 as the Founders intended, we would have over 10,000 Representatives and thus would have a much more democratic legislature. It would also be much more affordable to win a seat in Congress and would greatly reduce the power of lobbyists. You can't buy over 5000 people as easily as you can buy a few hundred people. Right now, it is a rarity for a Ron Paul or a Dennis Kucinich to win and all members of Congress tend to hold very similar views. If we had over 10,000 different districts, we would have a much more ideologically diverse Congress.

Yes, they wouldn't fit in the current building, but we could always renovate RFK Stadium in Washington, DC to add a retractable roof so that Congress can be operated out of there. It isn't like anybody is going to be using it for much longer, as the Redskins and Nationals got new stadiums out of the politicians and the United are about to get a new stadium. Since it is probably going to go to waste, we might as well use it to house a 10,000 member House of Representatives.

Each congressman, based on the current US population, represents more than 800,000 people, and you want to increase that number by reducing the number of congressmen? How will reducing representation be good for democracy. If anything, each congressman has TOO MANY constituents, but a constitutional amendment limited the number of congressmen to 485 because the US population just kept growing, and we can only fit so many seats in the Capital!

PS: Congressmen make less than $200K a year. I know that's a lot to regular people--including me--but come on. You're ignoring the big picture by focusing on this crap.

Yes, cut them down to one per state, and only let them work a few days a year, with pay being furnished only for the actual days worked.

They actually have to much time on their hands as it is, and spend that time trying to figure ways to make criminals out of the general public, and take our money away, what little we have left after they get through with taxes.

For all that believe we should increase the number, why? when you have no representation with the present number, as they ignore the wishes of the electorate and only follow the directives of the party heads?

I also see no reason why, even with the idea of the founders, that we in Ohio should have less representation than California, when in fact we are a donor state that some of our contributions end up in the California coffers.

Too many now and they are all making in excess of the $200K as mentioned, plus benefits and expenses.

No, we should increase the membership to save money. When a Congressman represents fewer people, the influence of the special interests decreases because the Congressmen does not need as much money to get their message across and its easier for the people to actually know their representative. With the influence of money reduced in elections, better legislation gets passed and that's where you save money.

A much larger savings would come from taxing the rich at pre 2001 levels.

Nope, but we should cut their pay in half and dissolve all benefits.