Should professional politicians be barred from running for public office?

YES!

We've had two businessmen as presidents. Under George W. Bush, in Dec 2007, we entered the deepest recession since the great depression. And even before that recession Bush was running the highest yearly deficits ever.

Then there's Trump, who botched our pandemic response and lied about the seriousness of Covid because he was trying to prop up stock prices. We lost about 22 MILLION jobs under Trump and ran a one-year deficit of $3.1 TRILLION.

So under what president was the economy best? Bill Clinton. Hands down.

JOB CREATION
Reagan 16.5 million
Clinton 18.6 million
Bush 5.8 million
Obama 8.9 million
Trump NEGATIVE 3 million

YEARLY DEFICIT
Reagan $79 billion to $152 billion
Clinton lowered our deficit from 255 billion to a $126 billion SURPLUS in 2001
Bush raised deficit from 0 to 1412 billion
Obama lowered deficit from 1412 billion to 585 billion
Trump raised from 585 billion up to ~4000 billion

DJIA
Jan 20 1981, Reagan takes office 946;
Jan 20 1989, Reagan leaves office 2235;
Up 136% or 11.3% growth per year.
Jan 20 1993, Clinton takes office 3242;
Jan 20 2001, Clinton leaves office 10588;
up 227%, or 15.92% growth per year.
Jan 20 2001, Bush takes office 10588;
Jan 20 2009, Bush leaves office 7949;
NEGATIVE 3.5% per year.
Jan 20 2009, Obama takes office 7949;
Jan 20 2017, Obama leaves office 19827;
up almost 150% over 8 years, or 12.1% per year (1.121^8=2.49).
Jan 20 2017, Trump takes office 19827;
Jan 20 2021, Trump leaves office 30,930;
up 56% over 4 years, or 11.76% growth per year.

BTW : "From 1952 through June 2020, annualized real stock market returns under Democrats have been 10.6% compared with 4.8% for Republicans." https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/07/23/historical-stock-market-returns-under-every-us-president/#51469926faaf
I'm not saying the stock market is the only way to judge a president, but to the extent it is valid, the market does more than TWICE as well under democratic presidents.

And they would only serve for one term because after that, they’d be a “professional politician.” I’d only agree to that if it was coupled with severe limits on lobbying along with a massive increase in legislative research staff. Without that, we’d have government by corporate lobbyists as they would be the only ones with institutional knowledge.

It would also have to work the other way with a lifetime prohibition against lobbying by former office holders along with limits on the kind of work they could do to avoid their use of their time in office to set themselves up with cushy corporate jobs.

Ah yeah what could go wrong by having absolutely incompetent/unqualified people running a nation /s

I look at politicians who get out of college and immediately start running for office. There are a surprising number of politicians that have never had a job other than public offices. The problem of career politicians is that they have been allowed to make a career out of government. Term limits is the answer to getting rid of career politicians.

probably because a politician who can't get paid for actually working as a representative is gonna have to find money in some other, more unsavory way.

No one should be barred, but TERM LIMITS.

No, I don't think so. No one should be barred that is otherwise eligible.
Voters SHOULD be aware of who/what they are voting for.
Take Biden for example - he accomplished nothing while in office for over 40 years.
It should not be a surprise that he's done nothing as president.

Of course there's also a question about the validity of the election -
Maybe voters should be vetted!

We also need to eliminate politicians ability to make millions of dollars after leaving office via kickbacks, for doing the bidding of lobbyists, rogue nations such as China and big corporations, while they were in office.

Yes. Just cut their pay to a trivial amount and the dilettantes will vanish.

Term limits, eliminating federal pensions, barring lobbyists, and the limiting of money spent witin campaigns would go a long way in breaking the stranglehold that the lifetime politicians/bureaucrats have on the voting system...

They fail at business and pivot to government? Sounds about right. If they were successful at business they know politicians are be bought through campaign contributions oftentimes for a nominal amount.

I kinda agree. Wait... 100% agree, yes they should.

The problem with politics is that people want the job. Make it so unsavory that people are forced to serve at their peril and watch the difference take place.

Yes

Before entering public office - all politicians should have at least 25 years WORKING in the real world, and not get elected and do nothing for 30 plus years

lol perhaps being a joe soap you lack too much honesty and not corrupt to the core 😆 [jackj]

But they wouldnt blow smoke up everyones ass🤷‍♂️

If other corrupting influences were regulated would seem a less drastic method.

Why should we have politicians at all?

Definitely.