Political Finance Reform - Changing the Way Money Flows in Washington
For 1/1000th of our federal revenue, we can reduce and possibly remove corporate special interest groups' influence from Washington Politics. Let's fight fire with fire .... "and the meek shall inherit the earth"
POLITICAL FINANCE REFORM (link to PoliticalFinanceReform.org)
Clearly our political system and government are broken and "legalized political bribery" appears to be responsible. The strategy proposed in "Political Finance Reform" will show by reallocating just 1/1000th of our federal revenue, we can possibly ostracize the corporations and reclaim our political system.
The Problem: Most politicians cannot gain office, maintain office, live like royalty while in office, retire like world class leaders – or, in many cases, even avoid a precipitous fall from grace upon job loss – without corporate financial dependence; and having a good policy record has been rendered unnecessary for winning elections, made obsolete by corporate sponsored political ad campaigns, made possible by 21st century media technologies our founding fathers could never have anticipated.
For a politician, in the 21st century, anything short of corporate capitulation appears to be career ending suicide. Considering all of this, if you were an ambitious 21st century politician, who would you be loyal to?
Conclusion: What should be clear #1 Whomever finances our politicians will win their loyalty. #2 Only 100% financial dependency upon the masses could provide us their undivided loyalty. #3 Corporations are not concerned about our welfare - only profit, at our expense - and we cannot vote them out, so allowing them to finance and thereby control our politics and government is irrational and precisely what's broken.
The Possible Solution: Eliminate split loyalties by reforming the way we allow our politics to be financed. Political Finance Reform by definition -- "provides a clean and complete break in financial ties between our representatives and corporations by replacing all corporate income and benefits with tax dollars - while simultaneously incentivizing change".
Our dilemma: To somehow find a way to "convince those who benefit from it, to make law illegalizing it" - ie. receiving "lifeblood revenue streams" from corporations - a nice trick and our proverbial catch 22. Further, SCOTUS will overturn progress on free speech grounds, so a constitutional amendment appears necessary.
Emulating The Successful Free Market Corporate Strategy – Fighting Fire With Fire
Logic dictates it will be imperative to propose and ensure equal, if not improved alternatives from tax dollars, otherwise why would they seriously consider it, let alone author it and advance it? Perhaps the key to finally achieving campaign finance reform (1) is to also replace the personal wealth our elected officials acquire through personal corporate stock portfolios (2) and the convenient, extremely lucrative "job-loss safety net" that corporate lobbying/consulting provides after office (3). How might that be accomplished?
(1) Campaign Finance
The cost to finance political campaigns has averaged $4 billion per election year the past three election cycles (’04, ’06, ’08). Clearly we must finance this ($2 billion per year) from public funds.
It would cost between $1 billion - $1.5 billion per year to provide a graduated "performance based" pay scale and pension scale where substantial enrichment would come from long term service, as dictated by good policy for the voting middle class masses, such as:
(2) Revised Pay Scale:
Congress: First (2yr) term $250k/yr - Second term $350K/yr - (etc., + $100K/term thereafter)
Senate: First (6yr) term $500k/yr - Second term $850K/yr - (etc., + $350K/term thereafter)
Vice President: First term $1 million/yr - second term $3 million/yr
President: First term $4 million/yr - Second term $6 million/yr
(3) Revised Pension Scale:
Congress: $50K pension per year, for each year served which would amount to $500k per decade served (remember, they can already make millions as corporate lobbyists/consultants).
President and VP: Annual pension commensurate to ending pay, ongoing.
Dependency Equates To Loyalty and Good Policy For The Middle Class
In exchange, our federal legislators must agree to make law (a constitutional amendment) illegalizing their financial connections to corporations (stock and employment) both during service and after service. The loyalty that 100% dependency should provide us could save taxpayers trillions of dollars - and quite possibly democracy itself.
Here we've applied free market principles of proper incentivization and complete dependence - on us. With this, our leaders can live like world class leaders while in office and retire like world class leaders - without needing to sell us out while serving.
These dramatic improvements in personal benefits only replace what they already possess (quantifiably verifiable, see links) with personal stock growth and corporate lobbying/consulting. Replacing and guaranteeing these personal benefits could prove to be sufficient incentive for them to risk defying their corporate benefactors. When combined with no longer needing to beg for campaign funds (less effort) and the newfound ability to be honorable - would they say no to this offer? Would you?
The Strategic Reallocation of Already Outgoing But Completely Wasted Tax Dollars
If agreed to, the cost to reclaim our political system and government by eliminating corporate financial dependence and replacing it with taxpayer dollars should only be about $3.5 billion per year, representing just 1/10 of 1% of our federal revenue, $3.55 trillion. If we can fix precisely that which destroys our political system, thus economy, environment, etc. by reallocating just 1/1000th of our revenue, who would say no?
What CEO with $1 million annual revenue would NOT reallocate $1,000 to avoid bankruptcy? If you faced losing your $100,000 home, but could save it for $100, would you make the expenditure? That's 1/1000th.
Further, if we’d go to war to preserve free market capitalism, shouldn't we be prepared to adapt to its unanticipated, unintended, most feared consequences? Adapting includes applying free market principles.
The question remaining: Can we get past our rage towards congress to act logically? Removal does not appear to be the answer because simply replacing politicians with new ones - or even changing parties - is not working and changes nothing, literally rendering our voting power impotent! Our desire to flog and remove our congressional leaders, while justifiable, nevertheless may have blinded us to the answer; adapt by designing a better system, demanding that upgraded system while simultaneously incentivizing Congress to legislate systemic reform - because they are the only ones who can affect change.
Isn’t this precisely what corporations would do? Let’s fight fire with fire.
Constitutional Amendment #28 "POLITICAL FINANCE REFORM" Proposed
With the money on the table perhaps we could eliminate political bribery by "reforming the way our politics are financed" in a single, resounding, one-time, all encompassing win/win constitutional amendment, which should also keep SCOTUS out of it. With this amendment, we the voters would hold the key to a prospective candidate’s #1 career opportunity #2 job security #3 personal enrichment #4 social status #5 retirement security; not corporate special interest groups - which, as it currently stands, appears to defy logic.
To further ensure regaining control perhaps we should also demand (possibly including, but not limited to):
#1 Additional claw-backs (link to details)
#2 "Citizens" United counteraction strategy (link to details)
Conclusion - Fix The System! - The Rest Should Take Care of Itself
Let's treat the cause (Political Bribery) rather than applying temporary band-aids to the symptoms.
Had we implemented this upgrade to our system a decade ago, would we revile Congress today? With our politicians’ complete financial dependence - and therefore possibly their undivided loyalty - what would bank, energy, tax, environmental and healthcare reform look like? Our generation created this. Don’t we owe it to our children to swallow this distasteful taste, suck it up and get it done? Who among us thought that fixing all of this would be painless? Doesn't this solution appear to be far less painful than the looming alternatives?
IF we choose to, we can regain control of our politicians - because united with our vote and armed with this plan - we can simply insist. Let us all pray for the day we can look back on "The Era of Legalized Political Bribery" as we do slavery, and wonder in amazement how we ever allowed it to exist in the first place.
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