I am convinced that this is the single greatest flaw in our political system today. When we rebelled during the Revolutionary War one of the major arguments was about taxation without representation.
Today, we suffer from something even more sinister.
We elect officials, they make laws, they govern our lives, and they guide the hand of government inexorably towards the will of those who put them in power. They are representing somebody, for sure, some over-wealthy member of the monetarilly gifted with so many millions of dollars they don't even know what to do with it all. But that isn't me. And that it is not the vast majority of any American. Where is OUR representation?
We all know most of our politicians are bought and paid for by business interests. And I would like to state first and foremost that I am not opposed to giving the 1% a voice. But I am vehemently opposed to the absolutely unacceptable, lopsided amount of representation they are able to pay for, and therefore receive.
Give the 1% representation in their elected officials, sure. That's fine. But let's make that ratio make sense. Allow them to elect 1% of the elected officials.
For the rest of us, where are our elected officials? Where is our representation? We should have 99% of all elected officials in our corner, and yet it seems we have but a loyal few.
It appears, at list to me, that this age old method of electing people by ideological popularity contests based on geographic regions that can be magically gerrymandered because "for no good reason whatsoever, ever", makes absolutely no sense. It wouldn't have made sense to our forefathers who would have required a stable geography to maintain ease of communication with their electorate. It also makes no sense now, due to the fact that communication is now easier than ever before, and we no longer need to base our representation on something as pointless, in as constantly a connected society as our own, as immediate geography.
Representation should be based on the simplest demographic of all - affluence.
We already have state representatives working for our local interests, let them do that job. Our national interests require a more national approach.
Allowing various levels of affluence to vote for their own reps (AND limiting campaign funding as well as voting to the corresponding economic groups) just makes more sense than the crap we put up with now.
Let every tax bracket have their own reps. Let those reps have their campaigns funded only by members of the bracket they represent. And allow members of each tax bracket to vote only for the reps running to represent the bracket they're in, and I imagine the system would work much, much, much more in favor of everybody. To the benefit of the nation as a whole.