Forum Post: How to Take The Money and Greed Out of Politics!
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 26, 2011, 1:29 p.m. EST by rightofleft
(2)
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When a senator or Representative is elected to office in Washington, he must be paid the average wage of his state, and nothing more!
The elected official must accept the healthcare that the majority in his state have, which is typically nothing.
The elected official will be given housing "representative" of the housing people making his wage live in.
The elected official must put in 60 hour weeks, and given one week off a year for vacation, at their own expense.
When elected, the official is given 4 coach round trip tickets to Washington, once to get there, once to go home, and one a year for his vacation, no charters or upgrades, it's not representative.
An elected official can only be elected to two, two year terms in office, or any combination of offices.
Any elected official currently in office more than 4 years must not be able to run for any Federal office, and must leave at the end of his current term.
Any elected official caught campaigning during regular business hours is fired for not doing his job.
There is no retirement plan for elected public officials, they are elected to serve the people for a short time, then return to their real jobs.
Lets start here, and build a truly representative government filled with elected officials who are actually there to represent the people!
My mom sent me this as an email and I think it's a stupid, reactionary idea. This does absolutely nothing to take the money out of politics! In fact, it would just entice politicians to take more money from big business. We need campaign finance reform. WE MUST PROHIBIT PRIVATE SPENDING ON PUBLIC CAMPAIGNS. This would put in place the framework to address all of the demands OWS is making, including this one. There are two ways I think this could be done www.getmoneyout.com and www.lobbydemocracy.com
You have a point, give the greedy less, and they'll steal it from somewhere else. This is just a starting point, I'm looking for more intelligent input from people like us, how about having our elected officials pass laws that regulate the officials, or create a state law that guides the actions of elected officials from that state? Any income or gifts from other than their employer, us, is a crime, and to jail both of you go. Senators will never vote to regulate themselves like that, laws have to be passed at the state level to pull the reigns in on the abusive. Just a thought.
Much better point and here in lies the problem. We're asking politicians to make a law that prohibits them from taking money. That's why I really hope that OWS can get make this the main focus of the movement. I believe all other grievances are symptoms, but hopefully with enough support we could demand this type of change or vote candidates in who would bring it up. Again, check out the links I posted before as possible ways to achieve this goal. What do you think?
I think any attempt at removing money and power from the political system is an endeavour worthy of pursuit. I have also noticed that when one money source dries up, for whatever reason, new ones open. Its hard to create rules to control a way of life, especially when the people who's way of life you want to change make the rules. I agree that the only way to change that way of life is to change how they get elected. Imagine a new political party born and raised on the internet, corporate money has no influence, speeches are fact checked as they are being given, people getting all, or as much actual fact as they want about any given candidate at any time. With enough support, not meaning financial, a candidate that won the support of the online party could very easily win a write in campaign. The Arab Spring proved that tyrants can be removed peacefully. Social media has replaced the TV news hour, maybe now is the time to replace the typical political ad.
Arab Spring - American Fall (or Autumn if Fall has too much of a negative connotation)!! The cynic in me says, "if voting ever changed anything, they'd have outlawed it by now", yet I do have a tremendous faith in the human spirit. Hopefully social media can be our catalyst
This is THE book for the OWS movement! http://www.amazon.com/Wildfire-Legislation-Ignited-Great-Recession/dp/1617392839/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295880272&sr=1-1
http://wh.gov/2zR