Spending? We have influence problem

Someone really needs to tell the Republicans that we don’t have a spending problem, we have an influence problem.

Rather than focus on cutting social spending they should:

Ÿ Publicly fund elections (Note: money is power, not speech);

Ÿ Make it illegal for politicians and their staff to accept jobs in businesses that they affected;

Ÿ Implement term limits;

Ÿ Make it illegal for a snator or congressman to ever take a lobbying job;

Ÿ Tax the wealthy enough to control their power.

If they made those changes to our system, then we’d minimize the power that wealthy special interests have over our system and those that are effectively industry operatives would have no reason to run for office as Manchurian Candidates for those industries and subvert the system. We may develop policies that directly benefit the lower and middle classes and enact sustainable policies that would reduce environmental degradation and the effects of global warming.

But I doubt that the special interests that are the Republican and tea parties will stand for real substantive change, as evidenced by the refusal to regulate Wall Street and force the oil industry to pay for inspection fees of its drilling operations.

They obviously think that private citizens can deal with the effects of poor governance more than business can afford to be forced to act responsibly.

Jeffery Biss

Elgin