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 this, if you were an ambitious 21st century politician - who would you be loyal to?
As a result and despite record profits and bonuses, corporate tax revenue has plunged from 32% of all US tax revenue to just 7% of all tax revenue, causing massive budget deficits in the trillions of dollars that politicians now try to balance on the backs of middle class labor. Until we remove corporate money from our politics, this and much more will only get worse.
Dependency Equates To Loyalty
What should be clear to us all by now: #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 -- "incentivizes a complete break in financial ties between our representatives and corporations by replacing all corporate perks, income and benefits with tax dollars."
Our dilemma: To somehow find a way to "convince those who benefit from it, to make law illegalizing it" - ie. receiving billions of dollars in lifeblood revenue streams from corporations, a nice trick and our proverbial "catch 22". Further, we simply cannot trust SCOTUS, so a constitutional amendment appears to be necessary.
Fighting Fire With Fire - Emulating the Corporate Strategy
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 is to also replace the personal wealth our elected officials acquire through their personal corporate stock portfolios and their very convenient, extremely lucrative "job-loss safety net" of corporate lobbying/consulting - and corporate perks. How might all of that be accomplished?
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 an additional $1.5 billion per year to replace corporate perks, the personal wealth acquired through stock and coporate employment after office by proposing to:
#1 add a zero to their pay (link to breakdown)
#2 greatly improve their pensions (link to analysis)
That could incentivize change. In exchange, they must illegalize their financial connections to corporations during service and after. With strict enforcement laws, complete financial dependence could provide us their "undivided loyalty" which could save taxpayers trillions of dollars and possibly democracy itself.
Strategic Reallocation of Tax Dollars
If agreed to, the cost to reclaim our political system and government should 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 what destroys our political system and government by reallocating just 1/1000th of our revenue, who would say no?
Given $1 million revenue, what CEO would not reallocate a mere $1,000 to avoid catastrophic failure? That's 1/1000th. If you faced foreclosure on your $200,000 home but could save it for $200, would you not make the expenditure? That's 1/1000th. Isn't America our home? If we could save our children's home by reallocating 1/1000th of our revenue, shouldn't we? Further, if we’d go to war to preserve free market capitalism, shouldn't we be prepared to adapt to its unintended, most feared consequences?
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; adapting by designing a system that eliminates split loyalties, demanding that upgrade while simultaneously incentivizing Congress to legislate systemic reform, because they're the only ones who can!
Replacing and guaranteeing personal and professional benefits could prove to be sufficient incentive for them to risk defying their corporate benefactors. When combined with no longer needing to waste time begging for campaign funds and the ability to be straightforward - would they say no to this offer? Would you?
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 politician'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? If we don't do this, what will it be like ten years from now? With our politicians’ complete financial dependence - and therefore possibly their undivided loyalty - what would bank, energy, tax, environmental and healthcare reform look like? Who among us thought that resolving "the issue of our generation" would be painless? Doesn't this solution appear to be far less painful than the looming alternative, catastrophic economic failure?
Let us all pray for the day when we can look back on "The Era of Legalized Political Bribery" as we do slavery, because that's where it's leading, and wonder in amazement how we ever allowed it to exist in the first place.
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