Alright, I'm sure some people will flame this view. But, whatever. In short:
I think the biggest problem that affects our government from doing a good job governing the nation and creating sound policies and laws is the influence of special interests groups' money and the politician's seeming desire to get elected for the sake of getting elected again.
Let me be clear. This is not an argument for some special interest groups and against others. Special interest groups come in many forms (big oil, big labor, financial services, environmental groups, etc.) I think money pumped into politics by special interests is bad, and it drives politicians to do things that they might not otherwise do. But, they do it because they wish to be reelected. And to be reelected in today's day and age, especially given the outcome of the Citizen's United case, you need lots and lots of money. And to get lots and lots of money, you need special interests groups to give you it (directly and indirectly, via donations and ad campaigns blasting your opponents and their policies.)
I think the real solution for this is to remove money from the equation. And I believe the only way to do this is to have all major elections at the national level (at the very least) publicly funded with caps for how much money can be spent. Doing so would force politicians to debate issues on their merits, not based upon the desires of their special interest overlords. In that case, Obama would not be so beholden to big Unions, and right-to-life groups wouldn't be able to decimate socially moderate republicans who aren't hard core pro-lifers.
I realize that this probably doesn't jive with many of the more conservative posters here and that it would actually take an amendment to the constitution, but I think that it's really the only way to negate the power of lobbyists and special interest groups in this country. And I think it'd do a lot of good for the health of our nation in the long-run.
And by "in short," I mean "here is a lot of shit to read."
No, I agree as well. It's always bothered me that the very people we're electing are listening more to the sources of money to their election campaign than to the votes of the constituency.
I've always found it pretty mind boggling that it seems that these senators and congressmen get elected for the sake of getting reelected, not for the sake of governing.
You remove the special interest money, you cut down on lobbying, and you cut down on the need to appease to get reelected. It would also cut down on the "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" mentality we see of senators getting tons of money from certain groups and then going to work for them when they are out of office. In other words, I fucking hate Chris Dodd and Haley Barbour.
Pork, it's all pork and I hate it. The ratio of politicians actually working to do something better for our country to those selfishly motivates is pathetic. People like Cory Booker (C_BOOKZ) are a rare breed. You couldn't convince me to enter public service, I'd feel inherently compromised just by participating regardless of the role.
While there are some things that I don't ike about Cory Booker, I went to dinner with him and a few other people in my poitical group here at Duke and a lot of his ideas (especially about marriage) were great IMHO. If you look at my opinion of marraige in the gay rights argument somewhere on ehre, my opinion is directly from him. Not a huge fan of the social programs and other liberal stuff he's doing, but overall I at least feel that he is doing it for the good of the people rather than simply re-election. If both occur...great (same as my opinion on Walker, although he needs this to pass so a Christie-type experience can occur)
I think special interests are a huge part, but another part is the fact that as soon as the congressmen are elected they are campaigning for re-election. I think we should extend what each term is. Look at the Senate vs. House, the House gets turned over so often, they institue massive amounts of pork. I feel that that is more of a problem. Special interests and lobbyists do perform a vital function, but remove the need for reelection so soon, I think that would be easier to do. Constitutionally and legally. I don't think politicians are beholden to special interests as much as corporations because special interests (I'm putting the separation like Focus on the Family and NARAL vs. like Exxon Mobil or an Oil PAC) represent a voting bloc based on ideology. If anything they are strong not because of donations, but because their member will vote on ideology and while other voters could care less about say, abortion rights to such a degree, the FoF members will not vote for the man who does support abortion.
Short story, the part of election is what makes the congressmen so beholden to special interests rather than $$$. Exxon and Koch may be able to lobby with money donations, but I also believe that it doesn't matter as much because they could just as equally sponsor ads that deride new legislation as killing jobs etc. Also, the notion of corporate interests as being evil is so wrong in many ways. If you want a society that is not beholden to interests and is pro-economy you can go live in a fascist state (hopefully with me as dictator).
A term limit would also help to eliminate the incentive to make decisions for the sole purpose of getting re-elected.
Also repealing the 17th amendment would do wonders for lowering the influence of the special interests
MMBinNC. I agree with some of what you have to say there, though I think the impact of special interest groups' money is far greater than just about anything else. I'm basically saying we need a much more extreme version of McCain-Feingold and to completely reverse Citizens United - all via an amendment to the constitution.
I don't necessarily think two year terms for congressmen is a bad thing because it, in theory, should force them to vote for the interests of their constituents or else they'll be sent packing quickly. In practice, however, special interests groups have much more sway and will pump plenty of money into getting their way via donations and ad campaigns. It's just a dirty system. I don't like that companies and unions can look at members of congress and calculate an ROI.
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