Posted on 08/29/2009 10:24:14 AM PDT by westcoastwillieg
The Silver Bullet - ‘Can’t Vote Can’t Contribute’
Money has corrupted our political system to the extent that it no linger represents the people but represents the special interests that fund politicians.
One solution to the problem is ‘Can’t Vote Can’t Contribute’.
Simply stated ‘Can’t Vote Can’t Contribute’ means no one can contribute one dime to any politician, political entity or activity who they cannot vote for.
There would be no limit on contributions and they must be placed in the public record as soon as they are accepted.
Violations of ‘Can’t Vote Can’t Contribute’ would be treated as a felony with a mandatory fine and jail term.
In one fell swoop ‘Can’t Vote Can’t Contribute’ eliminates campaign funding that does not come directly from voters and would create politicians who are actually responsive to the voters.
The First Amendment prohibits such restrictions in that money donated to campaigns and political organizations for electioneering is constitutionally protected. Under the philosophy of the Constitution, the evils of special interests, or ‘faction,’ in the language of the founders, are best remedied by more freedom, not less. See Federalist No. 10.
http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm
No, I didn’t miss that. In the past, I have contributed to conservative politicians in other states, when I thought it would be helpful. Conservatives do this as well as liberals.
What I said is that adding more and more rules is counterproductive, because the Democrats are very good at laundering money and contributing under the table. So, all that is accomplished by adding more rules is to restrict what conservatives are allowed to do, while the Democrats aren’t restricted at all.
When was the last time that Democrat fund-raising corruption was punished? Dem corruption is extremely common, but punishment is extremely rare. The Justice Department and the FBI and most of the courts work for the Democrats.
Obama raised an unprecedented billion dollars in the last campaign, and much or even most of it was corrupt money. Laundered, false donor names, foreign money from our enemies. Absolutely nothing was done to investigate or prosecute any of this, and nothing will be done—because he’s a Democrat and because he’s running the justice system.
Ironically, McCain was crippled by the McCain-Feingold restrictions, but they didn’t bother Obama a bit. Neither would any other rules have any effect. As I said in my earlier posts, there used to be some balance between Republican and Democrat political machines, but no longer. Democrats have a huge advantage in corruption and cheating, and it’s only getting worse as time goes on. And the media just love it and are eager to help out.
1) term limits.. 2 and you are out..Citizen Representatives not professional politicians.
2) Congress may not pass a law and exempt themselves.
3) Serious jail time for any congressman/senator that is convicted of bribery, change the standard to reasonably prudent instead of beyond a reasonable doubt.
4)Unlimited donations inside the US only.. No money from foreign sources..With full disclosure and then the caveat..if you take more than 25K from any single source.. you must vote present on any issue that involves a contract, an investigation of a competitor or any other topic with material interest to a donor.
5)End all funding to all causes without a constitutional mandate.
I like your solution better. Poiticians are awash in money, their campaign activities effectively form giant slush funds. They need to produce their campaign propaganda, I suppose, so they should have the ability to hire along those lines. If they were given nothing other than a fixed number of TV commercial spots and a budget for the aforementioned publicity, then any money they *did* get would stand out more, and instead of sneaky criminals, the political class would theoretically consist more of folks who stood for their ideas, left or right, and were willing to represent same without some backdoor benefit (Barney Frank notwithstanding)
www.50calsilverbullet.com
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