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"The love of money is the root of all evil." ~Timothy 6:10
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These words should be required to be enshrined on the walls of Congress and in every state legislature and ever courtroom.
Now...the most appropriate location would be on the walls of the US Supreme Court. |
The power of money drives cynicism into the heart of all levels of government. Everything — and everyone — comes with a price tag attached; from a seat at the table in the White House to a seat in Congress to the fate of health care reform, our environment and efforts to hold Wall Street accountable. ~Bill Moyers ( Read full transcript ) |
America is in grave danger. The middle class has been under assault for years but our Courts are helping the assault gain vast ground by handing Congress and our courts over to the highest corporate bidder. Our individual votes are "chips" to be purchased by special interests to assure their power is represented in all areas of government.
We sit with our heads in the sand, blindly believing whoever spends the most money to lie to us.
Once this situation passes a critical point of no return...we have been sold out and there is nothing to prevent the placement of a Corporate Emperor in the White House. Once BIG MONEY owns Congress and the courts where judges are elected, our voices won't be worth a damn.
It may not be too late if the voters wake up. How can this be reversed?
Since the root of this evil is money, cash must cease being the God of politicians. The reason they take the money is to get elected. Once they take the money, there is an implied obligation owed to the donor, placing the needs and the will of the voter below that of those who finance the elections. No one or no corporation spends millions of dollars to support any candidate unless they are assured a return on their "investment". They are not doing it to be nice; they are doing it for profits and power.
The first thing we need to do from a legislative stand point is create a public funded campaign system paid for by the tax payers and prohibiting private donations other than those from registered voters who are actual constituents of the candidates. Funding should be based on the demographics of the districts and be equal for all certified candidates. Prohibit donations of any amount from non-human entities or any person who is not a resident of the area served by the political office. This will help keep candidates from soliciting cash from wealthy donors who they don't represent.
Put a cap on private donations not to exceed $1,000 per candidate per election.
The above does not solve the problem of corporate funding of campaign ads for a particular candidate where the money is never given to that candidate. Here we need to try two things. (1) Include in the law that any money spent to influence in favor of any candidate shall be defined as if it were an attempted donation to that candidate...and thus banned. (2) We need a rare Constitutional Amendment that assures that, with regards to constitutional protections, those shall only apply to actual living persons and not to any artificial entity created by legislation such as corporations.
The existence and purpose of corporations and like entities exist only by statute and should not be entitled to Constitutional Protections of the same level as citizens. Any rights enjoyed by a corporation are limited to those provided for in the laws which govern their creation and shall not include a definition that declares them to be "persons" for constitutional purposes.
As for those in Congress, any member who would oppose reforms to take money out of politics should be considered suspect and probably on the take. As long as every member must compete on an equal footing within his/her district, no candidate should have cause to complain. The FCC could be directed in any reform. to provide to each candidate , to require a certain number of hours per election cycle as a condition of receiving or renewing their license to use public airwaves or to use public right of ways to lay cable.
The post office could be required to mail at a reduced fee, one piece of campaign literature to each registered voter in the district.
Does anyone in Congress have the will or the guts to propose anything of this nature? I believe a few could be counted upon for this. I believe Representative Kucinich might be one. I believe it is possible that Sen. John McCain might be a Republican who could support this. He has fought for finance reform in the past. It was his bill that the Supreme Court gutted recently.
This should not be partisan because, in the long run, it is to the benifit of all candidates to control and limit the high cost of running a campaign. More than that, it is in the best interest of every American Citizen (except those in the top 1% who want to own us).
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