What is sinking this country today isn’t the American populace, it is the bad politicians and the greedy corporations. In an ideal world, all politicos would be working solely for the public good. In an ideal world, big corporations would use their power to help large quantities of people, both by providing desirable jobs and spending money on community enrichment programs. Both of these things do happen; neither occur often enough.
But the American people ultimately control the power. Without our consent, their can be no governance. The outcry of a nation can be heard throughout the universe. It is past time to be heard.
It starts, of course, with campaign contributions. For too long we’ve allowed our attention to be diverted to minor issues while the elephant sits bloated in the room. We’ve prevented lobbyists, who may be well educated in a subject, from becoming advisories. My friends, it is not their knowledge we need fear, it is their money. We’ve prevented them from giving large gifts, convinced by the very politicians themselves that this will end thee powerful influence of lobbying. This is, in effect, dancing nimbly around the true sources of injustice, which are campaign contributions.
There is a rule in place which allows for candidates to use public money to run their campaign. And it seems every year, in a show of fairness, some campaigning politician promises to use this money to run their campaign… up until the point their private contributions exceeds the amount of the public fund. See, if you use the public’s money, you can no longer use private contributions.
If we were to end all campaign contributions and require all major politicians to run using only this set fund, the most effective campaigns would belong to those who handled their budget with thrift and efficiency. This is in stark contrast to today’s campaign races, where often enough when the money starts to run dry, they put out a call for a fresh influx of dollars.
Who do you want creating the new national budget? You have a choice, America.
