Senator Dianne Feinstein appeared confused during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday. When asked to vote on a proposal, Feinstein began giving a lengthy speech instead of simply saying “aye” or “nay” as requested. The committee chair, Senator Patty Murray, had to repeatedly tell Feinstein “just say aye” and remind her that it was time for a vote, not speeches. After some delay, Feinstein finally cast her vote. A spokesperson said Feinstein was preoccupied and did not realize a vote had been called. The incident raises further concerns about Feinstein’s ability to serve at age 90, as she has made other recent mistakes and often relies on aides.

  • BROOT@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    If 67 is the age of retirement in this country, then every single politician should be leading by example and retiring by then. I’m so sick of these geriatrics effectively ordering an entire lobster before they leave the restaurant and stick the younger folks with the bill.

    • ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.com
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      1 year ago

      No the retired need representation as well. You can’t right a wrong with another wrong. There needs to be a system in place for health evaluation and once you fail that without having a viable and reasonable path to improvement then you’re ineligible to be reelected. This needs multiple, separate, groups of people involved to reduce the risk of being used as a tool to oust undesirables. I can’t design such a system but I trust that people more well versed in how government works in the nitty gritty could design a suitable, acceptable system.

      • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        They need representation, they don’t need to be the whole representation. In fact, I’d say that 55+ people represent them quite well, since they are aiming to retire in the next decade anyways.

        I mean, they can vote, and they are a big sector of the voting base, so even if the politicians are younger, there will be enough of them wanting to please the 67+ sector.

      • StringTheory@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Voting is supposed to do all this for us, it is the check/balance.

        Problem is that more than half of Americans who should vote, don’t vote.

      • GentlemanLoser@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        I agree, I’m quick as anyone to joke about senility but to wholesale cut off our elders from decision making goes against all of social history.

        All that knowledge and wisdom is valuable, even if it’s just “we tried this and it didn’t work”

      • Sl00k@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        You can easily make this argument towards teenagers as well, but they’re obviously illegible. Yet their rights and futures are being stripped away by the elderly.

        There should absolutely be a hard cap and Senators should also be forced to use the services they provide (i.e. stop making millions stock trading) post retirement so it’s guaranteed to be beneficial.

      • Smk@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Why do we need a law ? Didnt they, the people, vote for this old person or not ? I mean, if you are going to vote for a dry old person to represent you, that’s on you, unless there’s something I don’t understand about the Senate.

    • Kerrigor@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I think that would just result in an even bigger push by right-wing politicians to move the retirement age even higher.

      Better would be to tie it to the average life expectancy, updated with each census.

          • The Cuuuuube@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            That’s how I interpreted it too. Just because we’re living longer doesn’t mean our capacity for work is stretching further. My knees are already going out and I’m not near retirement age. I don’t want to be stuck working longer, hating every moment of it, knowing that all this means is now I won’t actually get to enjoy retirement

            • Thrashy@beehaw.org
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              To play devil’s advocate, when Social Security was established (bringing with it the concept of a “retirement age”), the age of eligibility was deliberately set such that less than half of Americans would live long enough to draw on it. The clear expectation was that you would work until you couldn’t anymore.

              That said, in an era when changes in life expectancy are starting to take on a K-shaped distribution and labor force participation has been on a long steady decline, tying governmental income support to age and employment duration is becoming distributionally regressive. I’d much rather have some sort of UBI system that everyone can benefit from.

          • Refurbished Refurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org
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            1 year ago

            Average life expectency goes up over time due to advancements in healthcare. Tying the retirement age to the average life expectency is effectively raising the retirement age.

            • Kerrigor@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              It’s actually going down in the US. And again, I said tie the office age limits to life expectancy, not retirement age.

                • Kerrigor@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  Oh sure! So “retirement age” means the age at which the general population is eligible for certain benefits like tax-deferred account withdraw without penalty, social security benefits, Medicare, etc. Politicians generally go WAY past this age, well beyond cognitive decline, because they do not want to lose power.

                  Office age limits are (and should continue to be) unrelated to retirement age; otherwise it creates an incentive for politicians to RAISE the retirement age even further so that they can stay in office. Republicans already try often to increase the retirement age so that people will be stuck working until they die.

      • qwertyqwertyqwerty@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        I’m not a fan of this. Moving the retirement age to life expectancy would mean that you only get to retire if you live beyond your expiration date.

        • HumbleFlamingo@beehaw.org
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          I think they mean “average life expectancy minus n years” where n is fixed at 15, or whatever. But I disagree with this too. If you work 40 years, you deserve to retire in comfort. If a billionaire needs to have one fewer boats to help cover the cost boohoo to them and their other 5 boats.

        • PaintedSnail@kbin.social
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          I think Kerrigor meant that requiring politicians retire at the age of retirement would cause a push for retirement age to get bumped higher, and that it would be better for the maximum age for a politician to be tied to the average life expectancy (e.g. no more than 10 years younger than the average life expectancy, or some such).

          • Kerrigor@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Yep precisely! Sorry, I phrased it poorly. But this is exactly what I meant. If politicians are required to resign at retirement age, it creates a perverse incentive for them to RAISE the retirement age - which would be bad.

            If it is tied to life expectancy minus ten years, then it is based on data that adjusts automatically, and it’s less about age itself, more about average life expectancy remaining.

            • KrayZeeOne@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              All this talk about “life expectancy” tied to retirement. Am I the only one around here that’s blue collar tradesman that’s gonna die in there 60’s? How is 67 a reasonable retirement age?

            • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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              If it is tied to life expectancy minus ten years, then it is based on data that adjusts automatically, and it’s less about age itself, more about average life expectancy remaining.

              This would also incentivise politicians to try and increase average life expectancy, which is probably most easily accomplished with universal healthcare. So that would be a win as well

        • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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          To be fair, the user you replied to suggested it be tied to life expectancy, not set exactly at it. Things like “set it at life expectancy minus x years” or “life expectancy times x”, where x is some value less than one like 0.8 or something, would be situations where the retirement age is tied to life expectancy but where one doesn’t have to live longer than expected to get one.

          • verbalbotanics@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            Problem with all of this is, life expectancy is going down, and we know they’re not just going to kindly lower it to accommodate us. Look at what happened in France this year just to keep it at the same age

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        1 year ago

        But just because you are alive doesn’t mean you are useful as a worker or shouldn’t retire. If we tied retirement with us life expectancy minus 10 years then retirement would be 67. But in the future if people live until 90, 80 is not a good retirement age. They wouldn’t be able to carry out a lot of the tasks required.

      • BROOT@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        You’re probably right. And it’s not like any of them will ever vote for term limits. Our political system is a joke.

      • Takatakatakatakatak@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        If we were serious about having an actual impact on climate change, we should be talking about how long it is actually fair or reasonable for any human being to live.

            • knokelmaat@beehaw.orgM
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              Do you know any old people? Lots of them still have joyful and valuable lives. Also, quit talking about people in terms of “usefulness”. Sick people aren’t “useful”, disabled people aren’t “useful”, but they most certainly have a fucking right to live.

              I agree that artificially keeping a person alive while they no longer have any joy or value in their lives might be wrong, but this is a very difficult assertion to make and is certainty a lot more complex than your “just kill everyone at 65”.

              Also, the problem is not population, it’s how consumer focused our society is, constantly throwing away sustainable and ecological solutions for the sake of more profit.

            • snowbell@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              Wow, that is absolutely insane. My parents are around that age and as active and healthy as ever. I expect them to live another 30 years at least. They both still work even, and are damn good at their jobs.

            • circularfish@beehaw.orgM
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              I somehow feel as if you would be a hoot to have a beer with, but unfortunately this is the nice Lemmy instance with … shock … users over the age of 65. Even though part of me thinks you are just trolling the mods, we can’t leave up anything that even remotely reads as advocacy for murder.

              Stay away from those bears.

              • Takatakatakatakatak@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                1 year ago

                Oh shit, Beehawed again. I respect that. I don’t think it’s the place for me - I’m more into talking about real solutions to our problems, not just getting mad about shit.

                • circularfish@beehaw.orgM
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                  Lol. You are welcome with your out of the box thinking. Just don’t kill our user base. We are also stealing “Beehawed” as a verb. Sorry.

    • HousePanther@lemmy.goblackcat.com
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      They’re more than wealthy enough to engage in other activities and hobbies. They got rich in civil service, now it’s time for them to GTFO and make room for a younger, progressive leftist generation.

  • Uniquitous@lemmy.one
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    I’m way past sick of this fucking gerontocracy. The people determining the future should have a stake in it.

  • fades@beehaw.org
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    Absolutely disgusting, completely disconnected from not only the nation but reality itself.

    just another traitor standing in the way of progress

    Just like RBG, too interested in personal power and ego, what else is new I guess

    Edit: and naps, who doesn’t love a little power nap

  • sin_free_for_00_days@lemmy.one
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    People decry most “both sides” arguments for legitimate reasons. But this geriatric pandering takes place on both sides. It is absolutely disgusting to witness.

  • !ozoned@lemmy.world@beehaw.org
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    While I think she’s missed too much, she’s quite old, and I think she should be replaced (though I’m not in her area so this is a moot point really), did anyone here actually watch the video?

    This is a confusion in procedure and happens all the time.

    Here is the video, go to 53:40 approximately:

    https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/hearings/full-committee-markup-of-fiscal-year-2024-defense-interior-and-environment-labor-health-and-human-services-education-and-homeland-security-appropriations-acts

  • EmDash@beehaw.org
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    My guess is that most politicians just do what their staffers tell them. We’re just seeing behind the curtain with Feinstein.

  • lightninhopkins@beehaw.org
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    The GOP is dying for the left to pick up the mantle of putting age limits on serving in congress and the courts. It will help galvanize their base of older folks to vote. Don’t fall for it.

    • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz
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      The GOP is dying for the left to:

      • Protect women’s health
      • Do something about health care in general
      • Do something about gun violence
      • Protect the working class
      • Address any of the many systemic issues

      It will galvanize their base. Don’t fall for it.

  • hoodlem@hoodlem.me
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    As much as I appreciate what she has accomplished in her career, it is long past time to step down. I agree with the poster advocating for an age limit for public servants.

  • megopie@beehaw.org
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    Age limits and term limits are both bad ideas, but people who are in terminal mental decline should not be legislators, but it is up for their constituents to make that call.

    • Fazoo@lemmy.ml
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      Everything should have a term and age limit when it comes to running this country. No one over 70 has a real stake in the future until medicine has the average life expectancy up to 110. Most plans take years to negotiate and get moving on, with the results coming even later.

      • megopie@beehaw.org
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        I don’t believe in restricting who can vote or who can run. Doesn’t matter how qualified or unqualified someone might be, if voters choose them, then then that is that.

        The real issue here is that our voting systems are so broken and corrupted that the preference of voters is nearly never actually relevant to the outcome. Banning older people from running or putting in term limits won’t change that.

        Term limits are particularly harmful because they exaggerate the “revolving door” problem, a legislator that know they don’t have to run again has no reason to listen to the public in their final term, instead their incentive is to line up another job for when it is over, such as with companies that are lobbying them.

        Green representatives are also extremely prone to being manipulated by experienced lobbyists as well, and term limits on legislators will drastically increase the amount of green legislators.

    • Phoebe@feddit.de
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      It is a complicated topic. Cause a disability or age is not a good reason to limit access to something. It should never be a reason.

      We need to improve healthcare, making our Environment accessible to everyone. And we need to ask ourself why do older people feel the need to stay in politics? Could it be that our society has a bad view on getting older so people are afraid to retire and admit that their capability has changed?