My sig line calls for fundamental reform, but what do I mean by this? Politicians toss the word "reform" around without bothering to tell you what it means. All too often it means tweaking the law--usually tax law--to make sure they gore the other guy's ox. When I use the term "fundamental reform", I mean something more.
I believe that is more important to devise a good system of government than to have good leaders. In the late 18th century, we were extraordinarily fortunate to have both. The system of government that our founding fathers put in place in 1789 was truly ground-breaking; nothing like it had ever been conceived.
But today's world is much different than the world of 1789. As good a system as they put together, they could not have anticipated modern technology, nor could they have anticipated the evolution of our economic system. I am convinced that the founding fathers would have viewed corporations much differently than does the present day Supreme Court. I think reform is in order.
Below the fold, let me enumerate four reforms that I believe we need.
1. Corporations should be forbidden to engage in electoral politics.
The Supreme court in its Citizens United decision was fundamentally wrong. Not only should it be overturned by a constitutional amendment, but corporations shouldn't be allowed to campaign either for or against specific candidates. I think this can only be accomplished with legislation.
The unholy alliance between Congress and corporations makes this difficult to achieve, but if we don't succeed, then we will be ruled by the corporations and their CEOs. The first three words in our Constitution are "We the people ...", not, "We the corporations ...". I would think that even Republicans should understand the danger.
We did a very good thing when we placed a limit on the amount an individual could contribute to a political campaign. We need to finish that good work by cutting corporations entirely out of politics. Their mission is to produce goods and services, and to make a profit for shareholders in the process. To allow them to participate in the electoral process is tantamount to legalizing bribery.
Even lobbying, which can in theory be a positive activity, ought to be put on a "squeaky-clean" basis. Everything that a corporation or industry says to Congress ought to be transparent to the public as well. Private conversations between lobbyists and legislators ought to be banned. This is not a free speech issue; it is a conspiracy to commit bribery issue.
2. Legislators should be completely free of conflicts of interest.
This is just common sense. If legislators own stocks (even in a blind trust), or accept campaign contributions from businesses, then they have a financial interest in the legislation before them. They should be required to put their entire liquid net worth into treasuries and/or cash, and they should be forbidden to accept campaign contributions from business.
President Obama touched on this issue in his SOTU address, and apparently his words struck a nerve. (h/t to Charles for his first diary. Follow his first link for a brief clip from the address.) It will be interesting to see if a bill is introduced, how good the bill is, and who supports it.
I do not contend that Congress is full of crooks; in fact, I think there are very few out-and-out criminals under the Capitol dome. But when a basically honest legislator sees his colleagues getting wealthy with shady, but not criminal stratagems, it is easier to relax one's standards. By adopting these two reforms, we would make it clear to legislators that scrupulous honesty is the minimum we expect from them.
Consider the difference between Professional Golf and Professional Football. In football, it is perfectly acceptable to break the rules as long as one doesn't get caught. In golf, the individual competitor is the primary rule enforcer, and one is expected to obey the rules as a matter of principle, even when nobody is watching. These are both games, and I don't criticize football for its approach to rules enforcement. But politics is more than a game. I want our political system to have a rules enforcement policy closer to that of golf than to that of football.
3. Compensation for legislators and the president should be dramatically increased, but only after 1 and 2 above are in place.
We are not being realistic if we expect public servants who are responsible for $3.7 Trillion in government spending to be compensated at $174,000 a year. But on the other side of that coin, we have a right, as I have argued above, to expect the very highest standard of integrity from them. To date, the realistic standard compensation for legislators has been: "$174,000, plus all you can steal." Perhaps that's wording it too strongly, but what do you call it when somebody trades on inside information? The fact is that legislators seem extraordinarily lucky when it comes to their personal finances.
4. Legislators should have a financial incentive to do what benefits the people.
Let us be candid; although we elect them, members of Congress frequently work against our best interests. Their financial incentives are to raise campaign funds, and they therefore work for the rich and for the corporations.
They can make more money by canny investing than they can with the pittance we pay them. Canny investing is made possible by the possession of inside information and the power to make the rules. On the other hand, there are no particular financial incentives for legislators to work for the economic well-being of the average citizen.
Nonetheless, I believe that there are many legislators who are dedicated public servants. Unfortunately, there are also many who take every opportunity to enrich themselves at the expense of the public good. We should encourage the former, and punish the latter. We can do this.
Let's suppose that legislator compensation were as follows: (This is only an example, thrown together by a rank amateur.)
Base salary of $500,000, plus a bonus (maximum $1 million) calculated as follows:
$100,000 for every percentage point that the unemployment rate drops.
$100,000 for every 1% increase in median household income--after taxes.
$100,000 for every $100 billion cut from the deficit (based on actual spending)
$5,000 for every percentage point of approval in a national poll
BTW, I'd set the President's compensation at twice or 3x the legislator's.
If, under this compensation program Congress managed to get the maximum bonus, it would cost the nation about $709 million, or about $2.30 per capita--less than the cost of a gallon of gas. Our government spends $422 million per hour, so $709 million, while it sounds like a lot of money, is not a budget buster. If the bonus criteria were set so that ordinary citizens were benefited by attaining those criteria, we would each be better off by much more than the price of a gallon of gas.
But how could such a system be administered? First, we would have to produce a consensus set of priorities. The above example defines these priorities: Employment, disposable income, budget deficit, and approval rating. No doubt, others could be proposed, but I would think the list should be kept short.
These priorities would have to be defined with a good deal more rigor than I have used in the above example. The employment criterion, for example, might be "total number of non-farm full time jobs divided by the population, excluding the retired".
Next, we need somebody, perhaps several people, to fill in the numbers. The objective should be to make attaining the maximum bonus difficult, but not impossible.
Those same people would referee the process. For example, where do the numbers for median household after-tax income come from? The entire process could be modeled on the way the Fed determines interest rates. The people involved would have to be independent of Congress, so I would propose that the President appoints them, and the Senate confirms them. No confirmation, no bonus, so the Senate would under pressure to act swiftly and objectively.
I am so strongly in favor of legislators being insulated from conflicts of interest that I'd advocate that their tax rates and fringe benefits be frozen the day they take office. They should never be in a position to affect their own finances with their votes.
Tax policy should benefit all income levels equally. I have beaten this drum since discovering Daily Kos in late October of 2011. I have, sometimes frequently advocated policies that other Kossacks disagree with, sometimes vehemently. As a result, many of my opinions have changed in the past three months.
I expect the first of my suggested reforms to be more or less uncontroversial. But I'm sure the fourth will generate a good deal of opposition. But before dismissing it, I'd like you to keep in mind that I'm proposing the first two as as a necessary condition for the next two.
There are other reforms that might be suggested. Line item veto, for example, or different filibuster rules in the Senate. I am not personally happy with our process for filling a SCOTUS vacancy, but I have no specific proposal to offer.
These are my ideas of fundamental reform; you must admit that it's not mere tweaking. I make no claims for its practicality; maybe it's impossible to bring about, or maybe we can only expect to make incremental progress, such as the legislation President Obama called for in his SOTU address. I pose these questions: would America be better off if we adopted these reforms? What other fundamental reforms would you suggest? How can we get there from here?