Posted by
Charlie on Monday, July 09, 2007 1:30:00 PM
Continuing this series on how my opinion of Congress can be improved I herewith present Part 2.
1. Limit campaign spending. Periodically we are presented with details on how much money the leading candidates of the major parties have raised. Great stress is placed on who raised the most money. Why should this be relevant to who might be the best president for the country? Is the presidency of the United States for sale? It would seem so. This is also true of most other elective offices as well. The candidate who has raised the most money, and let's face it to raise the kind of money it takes to run a presidential campaign gets it from special interests, usually wins the election.
McCain-Feingold was an attempt to place limits on campaign contributions and campaign activities. This bill was blatantly a violation of the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. In another one of it's stupid decisions the Supreme Court declared this unworkable law to be constitutional.
I'd like to propose a simple solution to this problem. Simple is a concept our legislators in Washington don't seem to understand. They would rather make something complicated so the peasants don't know what they are up to.
So here it is: Let's limit campaign spending. Let's base the amount it is permissible to spend on a presidential campaign to the amount of votes cast in the previous election. In 2004 there were a little over 120 million votes cast. At 25 cents per vote that would make the maximum amount spent by a candidate $30 million. That's enough to inform the electorate as to what the candidate stands for and yet not enough to bombard voters into insensibility so that by the time election day comes around the main thought in most peoples mind is, "Thank God it's over."
Contributors to the various campaigns would no longer be restrained by limits as to how much they can contribute. However, any money taken in by a campaign in excess of $30 million would go the the general fund of the U.S. Treasury.
Any candidate who exceeds the $30 million limit would be disqualified from holding the office for which he ran.
2. Let's please have term limits. For many years term limits were unnecessary. Most legislators would serve for a limited time and then go home. Of late, the trend has been to make serving in Congress a lifetime career, spurred no doubt by the great perks they have given themselves. Relic like Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who has been responsible for enough pork projects to balance the Federal budget, must go. Personally, I'm in favor of the one term and get the hell out but others no doubt have different ideas.
3. The Survival Index. Every month the government reports the amount of inflation for the previous month. Usually this shows a small up tick and we are told inflation is under control. The cost of living index is a compilation of many items including such things as food and clothing but also includes the price of automobile, appliances and many other things. I believe this gives a false impression of how much real inflation is effecting the average American since quite often the price of so-called volatile items is discounted. these volatile items often include food and fuel. they should be called vital items not volatile items. That is why I am proposing that a new index, called "The Survival Index" be compiled and published by the government. This index would include only four items: food, shelter, fuel and clothing. these four items are essential for human survival and would give a truer picture of the effects of inflation on the majority of Americans.
Will any of these suggestions be put into law? I doubt it.
This makes me FURIOUS!!!!