Bailout schmailout the only answer to fixing most of the problems that face America is to scrap the current way that our politicians have to become pimps for special interests to get elected.
The central theme of the 2008 presidential election was the need to fix Washington and fix this country. Obama won on the election because enough Republicans, Democrats, and independents thought he meant what he said about calling for change. Now we have to give Obama some time to see if his deeds will match his rhetoric.
My take on this whole financial melt down though is we have a bunch of dunderheads in congress panicking and just throwing the keys to the treasury to the financial pigs at the trough, the same guys who gambled and lost with their deregulation of the stock and commodity markets, real estate speculation and bad business decisions.
Then when a business that actually makes something made in the USA needs a fraction of the money that we gave unfettered, without any oversight regulation to the same guys that brought this crisis on us, congress wants to get tough on the UAW union and throw over a million retirees that based their retirement plans on the promise that their medical insurance would be covered for life to the wolves.
That being said the point that needs to be addressed here is in order to actually have a representative government of the people for the people and by the people is to fix the fundamental problems caused by the undue influence of money over government decisions. In order to accomplish this goal, the overriding priority on any reform agenda is to repair the presidential public election financing system and to create a new public financing system for all public offices starting with federal offices first.
Now federal candidates are totally dependent on special interest groups, lobbyists, bundlers and large contributions for their campaign funds. That is the role that influence money has played in everything that has lead up to this national financial meltdown.
It is acknowledged by most experts that the absence of effective regulation and oversight is playing a major role in this meltdown of our financial institutions. Campaign money to federal officeholders from the financial sector played a significant role in thwarting effective regulation and oversight.
In the past decade alone, the financial sector has contributed nearly $1.5 billion to federal candidates and their parties almost evenly divided 56% going to the Republican and 44% to the Democrats. Now that’s a bipartisan approach for you.
So in order for the peoples business to be addressed, we the people better get off our sofa’s and demand a total reformation of the nation’s campaign finance laws. Some of the issues that should be addressed are as follows.
We must close major campaign finance loopholes.
1. Ban joint fundraising committees used by presidential candidates to circumvent candidate contribution limits.
2. Prevent presidential candidates from using candidate/party “hybrid ads” to avoid counting full costs of ads against public financing spending limits.
3. Curb Leadership PACs.
4. Reform and strengthen the Federal Election Commission.
5. Press for Commissioners to be appointed by the President based on qualifications and experience.
6. Ensure that independent groups making expenditures for TV ads and other public communications to influence federal elections comply with federal campaign finance laws.
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