Former President Bill Clinton has been making headlines again this week, as he proclaimed the 22nd Amendment – which imposes a limit of two four-year terms on the president – should be amended.

Clinton, who finished out his second term in 2000, said the amendment should be changed to read that no one may be elected president for more than two consecutive terms – the current wording describes the limit as two terms, period. Therefore, presidents who have served their two terms could run again after someone else has had a shot at the job.

Although Clinton said such an amendment would probably not be passed in time to benefit him, he would obviously have a stake in this plan. If it came to fruition, he could run for president again. It is possible that he hopes to reinvigorate an increasingly marginalized Democratic Party by taking back the White House – or maybe he just misses the fringe benefits of being president.

While it’s easy to see why Clinton might propose this type of amendment, the public would be ill served by its implementation. Term limits provide a valuable service to American citizens – the ability to better choose who will lead them.

While it is true that democracy revolves around the principle that the people elect whom they want to be their leader, allowing a president to be reelected over and over again is unfair to the other candidates – not just from other parties, but from the president’s own party. A candidate with no name recognition would have a drastically reduced chance against a candidate with eight years in the White House under his belt – even though he might be a better leader. It’s the same problem many unknown candidates face against incumbents, but compounded.

Clinton said one argument for modifying term limits is if the nation faces problems which were solved by a former president, he could come back and fix things again. But what Clinton failed to take into account is that if the problems come back, then they apparently have not been solved. In such a situation, what the country would truly need would be somebody new to tackle the problem from another angle.

The 22nd Amendment was added to the Constitution after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to his fourth term as president, and since then there has been no good reason to change it. To do so would be to say that only one person is qualified to run our nation. Even if this were true, that person is certainly not Bill Clinton.