Does money buy elections? After reading this 2008 paper by “Just $6,” you’ll have no doubt. What is Just $6 about?
Congress would only have to spend $6 per citizen per year to publicly fund each and every election for the House, the Senate and the White House. When you consider that “pork barrel” projects cost every one of us more than $200 last year alone, it’s no contest.
Think of it. With public funding, wealthy special interests and their hired lobbyists would no longer have a commanding influence over our politics and government. Instead of begging for campaign donations, candidates would spend their time communicating with voters. Once elected, our leaders would be free to focus on our nation’s challenges rather than having to worry about financing their next campaign. And there’s no doubt that more of our most able leaders would run for federal office when the ability to finance a campaign isn’t such a daunting obstacle.
I have advocated the idea of tying the income of elected officials directly to the mean disposable income of their constituency.
Here is the basic idea:
When someone is elected, all income from private, and public sources, including bribes, the value of gifts, and any thing else is tabulated on a weekly basis. Failure for the official to report income would mean jail time for the politician. The average disposable income of the people represented, would also be tracked with oversite, on a weekly basis. Any income above the mean for the constituents would be taken as tax revenue.
Perks would also be severely restricted.
The idea is to force the elected law makers to live within the same standards of the people they represent, so by improving the financial well being of the dconstituency, they make themselves better off.
Thanks for the post! We were a bit surprised ourselves after doing the research. Making sure qualified candidates have enough to be heard is a powerful idea, and one that's overdue.
“We don’t have a democracy. We have an auction.” I caught this quote at one of Eddie Roth's posts.