Former President Bill Clinton wants Congress to change the Constitution to allow a commander-in-chief to seek a third term in the White House.
The 22nd Amendment, passed after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to a fourth term, bars a person from being elected to more than two four-year terms in a lifetime. Clinton suggested the rule be modified to prevent more than two consecutive terms, since “people are living much longer.”
”There may come a time when we have elected a president at age 45 or 50 and then 20 years later the country comes up with the same sort of problems the president faced before, and the people would like to bring that man or woman back,” he told an enthusiastic crowd at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston yesterday.
Would he take advantage of the amended amendment himself?
Clinton said he thought such a change probably wouldn’t apply to him.
During a question-and-answer session with presidential historian Michael Beschloss, Clinton reflected on the two years spent out of office and the eight he served as the 42nd president.
“I was surprised at how happy I was to have my life back,” he said, but added that he misses the work, the people, Camp David and Air Force One.
Sounding like a perpetual politician, Clinton took the opportunity to slam the Republican Party. He ridiculed the $350 billion tax-cut measure President George W. Bush signed into law yesterday, saying it would only line the pockets of the wealthy and not stimulate economic growth.
“When all is said and done and all the smoke clears, the only people who will be better off are those of us who didn’t need it anyway,” the Boston Herald quotes Clinton as saying.
He also criticized U.S. foreign policy for going it alone, rather than cooperating with the international community.
”I think it is time for traditional political activity. And for people not to feel that their patriotism has been impugned if they have a different take on things. We need more thinking and more debate now,” he said, according to the Boston Globe.
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