Forum Post: Sever Wall Street from Washington Constitutional Amendment
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 4, 2011, 9:56 a.m. EST by shrimpster
(7)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
The solution as posted many times here is to simply sever the financial influence of corps and banks on washington. Only real people should be able to donate and not these fake corporate people established to take away the accountability of the puppet masters behind them.
Here are my 5 rules. What are yours?
- Corporation IS NOT a person (ie, a US Citizen or Legal Resident)
- Only US Citizens and Legal Residents (Persons who pay taxes) can donate money to government officials and campaigns
- Each US Citizen and Legal Resident has a donation cap
- All media outlets must provide equal air time and coverage for opposing candidates during election
- Politicians and gov't employees cannot work in a sector for two years after leaving office where they actively wrote or sponsored a bill that impacted that sector.
Good News ... a few minutes ago Donna Edwards introduced her Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United.
However, I do not believe it goes far enough. "Limiting" corporate-owned government basically takes us back to the way things were during Bush (2000-2008).
I believe the ONLY way we can move forward is "Get Money Out" constitutional amendment being advocated by Dylan Ratigan & others.
Wall Street must have ZERO influence on our politicians (not vague regulations, or "limitations").
We can't have economic, social or environmental justice until we take the profit motive out of war, economic & social disparity, pollution, etc.
I see this as the ONLY way for our country to move forward. I humbly propose (a) we decide on a clear, decisive objective, and (b) if that objective is a constitutional amendment, then approaching DFA, MoveON, and other groups to join in & bring it to national attention.
Wholeheartedly agree. The first steps are too pass these as laws then as Constitutional Amendments. But lets push for Amendments. Will take a look at the Get Money Out amendment
Not sure if I like the Get Money Out amendment. It basically says that no one is allowed to make contributions. Which means that those with the deepest pockets will be successful in office.
Contributions should be allowed by people only and a cap that equalizes everyone's influence should be made. This is free market principles applied to politics. let your dollars vote.
wholeheartedly agree with these. more are needed, but these are solid.
Corporate Free Speech There needs to be better corporate representation. Money is speech. Every individual, even individual stockholders, "ownership," has a right to free speech. Free speech means no one can force or prevent an individual's speech. Ownership has the right to direct the corporation's speech and political contributions. Majority control of contributions may violate an individual's free speech. Corporate management can speech for the corporation, but ownership needs to authorize that speech. No speech or money spent on political contributions may be made without ownership authorization and such contributions must be taken from the individual's dividends. No dividends means there is no allowance for contributions. Corporate management must poll the ownership to determine the amount and placement of all individual stockholder directed contributions. The assignment of all corporate contributions must be made public so that ownership can verify the correct placement of their contributions. Management can not make contributions on the behalf of nonresponsive ownership and thus can only make contributions for which they have been directly authorized.
Money is speech. Corporations are people, because people get the money. Free speech means people are not forced to pay for someone else's speech. Corporations may not force to pay or deny dividends, to a person who does not approve of money spent on speech. Corporations may only spend money on speech that is taken, by approval, from the people who get the money. Every person who gets money, from the corporation, must approve the money spent on speech, in order to protect the right to free speech. Since the money spent on speech is identifiable with a person then that money is subject to caps associated with that person and must be reported. Also, tax consequences flow, to each person, for tax exempt contributions. If the corporation feels that the cost of polling and reporting the money spent on speech is prohibitive, then the corporation is prohibited from spending on speech. Corporations spend money on product ads and any political placement in a product ad must have unanimous consent of ownership.
I do not believe that corporations should be people. There are shareholders behind the company that can easily represent the company in speech. If the corporation wants to make a contribution it should be accounted back to the shareholders and applied to the shareholder's overall contribution cap. This prevents shareholders that have investments across multiple corporations to amplify their influence anymore than a teacher in Wisconsin.
That is the point that I am making. The corporation is a vehicle for people to finance their speech and should be done on an individual level and subject to individual caps and whims. Corporations are people for legal purposes, to be sued, to own property, to be able to enter into contracts etc.. Causing the concept of Free Speech to flow down the corporation to the individual will dilute the power of management to make contributions and thus make the corporation more representative of the people. Having people to decide between getting dividends or making contributions is the essence of free speech. After all Free Speech is not exactly free.
At the end of the day.....money talks and bullshit walks. In a fair society, we need to make sure that the few people with more money can't talk louder and drown out the majority of people.
The problem is the rich use the corporate vehicle to leverage their influence at the cost of other owners.