Lying in bed recovering from surgery has given me time to contemplate solutions to our nation’s woes.
You will find that I have previously wrote a short article on how to get millions of America back to work, while reducing our dependence of foreign oil. You can read it below or by clicking here.
I am now going to lay out my solution to end the political stalemate in Washington, and make congress more accountable to the people.
Before I begin let me start off by stating for the record that I think that there are some congressmen who have betrayed our nation by doing what is in their political parties best interest rather than our nation’s best interest.
Our nation’s credit rating was recently downgraded because of the actions of some of these congressmen; they should be ashamed and they should be ousted out of our government. They have done enough damage.
As an Air Force veteran, these congressmen make me sick to my stomach and are aberrant to everything I believe in.
With that being said, some may think my solutions are too simple, and that is because I have designed them that way, to be simple.
To end the political stalemate in Washington, we must first get special interests and corporations out of our government.
I firmly believe that our government is firmly in the control of special interest, corporations, and oligarchies right now. (An oligarchy is a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few. These would be the super-rich 1% who control most of the wealth in this nation.)
The Declaration of Independence says: “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” nowhere does the Declaration of Independence say by special interest, corporations, or oligarchy.
In order to flush the special interest and corporations out of our government toilet bowl, we need to enact campaign finance reform.
In other words, the way things work right now, someone who wants to run for congress or political office has to raise mega millions of dollars in order to do so. In order to win, a candidate either has to pay for the campaign out of their own money, or they have to go to special interest, corporations, or wealthy contributors for the money to do so.
Either way, these candidates end up being for the most part non representative of the people because they have to answer to those that gave them money to be elected.
Ultimately, these candidates end up owing favors to the special interest, corporations, and wealthy benefactors who contributed to their campaign.
How does this help our nation, it doesn’t, it is a system ripe for corruption.
In the end rather than doing what is in the best interest of the American people, you end up with candidates doing whatever they can to be re-elected, and to please whoever gave them money for their campaigns.
I say the Federal Government should give each candidate a set amount of money for their campaign, and that is it. No more money allowed!
No candidate should be allowed to use private money or special interest money again for their campaigns.
Each TV channel in return for being given a broadcast license in this nation should be mandated to give each candidate a set amount of time on the airwaves to campaign, and that is it. No more crappy political ads every commercial break.
This solution should get rid of the special interest control over our elections, corporate control of our elections, and the oligarchy control over our elections.
The Supreme Court made a horrible decision in Citizens United by allowing corporations to donate unlimited amounts of money towards political campaigns, because it took the voice of the people away and gave it to the corporations.
I know some may balk at the government financing campaigns, and putting limits on how much money each candidate may spend, but this is the only solution if we want to take our nation back from the special interest, corporations, and oligarchies.
Do we have the guts to take our nation back?
My second solution is term limits for all congressmen, just like we have for our president. 2 terms and then you are out of there.
There are congressmen who have been in office their entire careers. I do not think our founding fathers had this in mind when they set up our nation.
These career congressmen have learned how to game the system, and exert an undue influence on what they call junior congressmen.
Some of these career congressmen are so cavalier; they think they have an automatic entitlement to be re-elected. Therefore they do what they want instead of what is best for the people and their constituents.
Most if not all of these congressman are loyal to their political parties more than they are loyal to the American people.
It is time to flush these congressmen down the drain, and get people in there who care more about our nation than their political party.
Therefore let’s enact term limits for each congressman, 2 terms and that is it!
My solution to fixing our government is simple; (1) Campaign Finance Reform, and (2) Two Terms for each Congressman only.
We need to take our nation back before it is too late.
By Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq., © November 7, 2011
