Our Broken Government

Government

The government of the United States is broken.  It has been destroyed by greed and financial influence.  I’m sure I don’t need to summarize the most recent years of stalemate, corruption, in-fighting, deceit, cronyism, and abysmal decisions regarding our courses of action in world affairs.  We have sent our fighting forces into battles that are unwinnable.  These actions have been taken with little or no planning or the setting of any attainable objective.  The cost of these wars has never been acknowledged.  Lives are lost; soldiers are maimed both physically and mentally; veteran care is ignored; and domestic needs go unmet because we no longer have enough money.

Politicians seem to have one overriding objective, to stay in office.  They will do this by sacrificing anything they can to attain longevity in office.  The fuel for this engine of survival is money, lots of money.  The needs of the nation are secondary to job security.  The money raised comes mostly from campaign financing.  The purchasing of an influential member of congress through campaign donations was difficult before 2010.  Now, after the Citizens United decision, it is a legal activity.  Large corporations and billionaires could now buy politicians on the open market, and do so legally.  I say legally with the caveat that they are only buying influence and access, as they don’t actually own a human being.  The result however is the same.

This disastrous decision by the Supreme Court opened the barn door, the horse escaped and then the barn was burned to the ground.  The only recourse would be to rebuild the barn and capture the horse.  This metaphor means that only a constitutional amendment will right the wrong.  How do you motivate government leaders into meaningful campaign finance reform?  These are the same leaders who most benefited from the decision.  The realistic answer is that you don’t.

You will never get a constitutional amendment passed through an already divided congress when there is no upside to either of the prevailing parties.  The only “stick” large enough to beat some sense into these intellectual wannabes is the collective outcry of the majority of voters.  That outcry won’t happen while the bulk of the voting public can’t tell you the name of the vice president.  Who would write the amendment, or perhaps collection of amendments, that would be needed to clean up the current mess within our government?

I would propose a gathering of real intellectuals.  Perhaps they could be drawn from our universities and institutions of higher learning.  These would be constitutional scholars, legal minds, sociologists, and individuals from virtually any discipline that would be willing and capable of working on the problem.  Their first objective would be campaign finance reform.  They would be tasked with the writing of a comprehensive constitutional amendment that prohibits the gross corruption of our political process through unfettered financing of political careers.  This task force would then be responsible for working within the existing structure to get the amendment passed.  Built into the amendment could be other gems like term limits, full disclosure of revenue sources, and campaign spending limits.

Another possible solution to campaign finance reform, still requiring an amendment, would be a singular restriction on funding.  That restriction would identify a single blind trust created for all campaign expenditures.  You can donate what you want to the politician of your choice but that individual will never know the source of the money.  This amendment would also make it illegal to spend money, outside the blind trust, to organize support for or attempt to promote a politician through any recognized media.  Individuals may still use social media to voice opinions but billionaires would not be able to buy media time to promote individuals.  Free speech should mean the thoughts of individuals, not corporations.  A billionaire can talk just like any other person; he just shouldn’t have a bigger voice because he has a bigger wallet.