Why Washington is corrupt

Interesting editorial article from CNN:

Quote :

Why Washington is corrupt
By Lawrence Lessig, Special to CNN
updated 10:54 AM EDT, Sun April 7, 2013

How America lost its Republic
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Lawrence Lessig: America's democracy is hobbled by the power of money in politics
A tiny slice of Americans provide funds that largely determine who wins primaries, he says
The funders of elections generally don't share most American's priorities, he says
Lessig: Congress should vote to fund campaigns through small contributions
Editor's note: (Lester) Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School and director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics. Lessig spoke at the TED2013 conference in February. TED is a nonprofit dedicated to "Ideas worth spreading" which it makes available through talks posted on its website.
(CNN) -- We Americans are disgusted with our government. We ranked fixing "corruption in Washington" number 2 on Gallup's poll of top presidential priorities in 2012. Yet Washington doesn't seem to care. Neither President Barack Obama or Mitt Romney even mentioned "corruption" as an issue that their administration would address. And it will take a lot more work by us to get them to pay attention.
The first step, however, is to figure out how best to talk about the problem. People say the problem is "money in politics." That we need to "get money out." That "money is not speech." That "corporations are not people."




... in my TED talk, I created Lesterland: Imagine a country like the United States, with just as many "Lesters" as the United States (about 150,000 out of a population of more than 300 million, or about 0.05%). And imagine those Lesters have a very special power: Each election cycle has two elections. In one, the general election, all citizens get to vote. In the other, the "Lester election," only "Lesters" get to vote.
But here's the catch: To be allowed to run in the general election, you must do extremely well in the Lester election. You don't necessarily need to win, but you must do extremely well.
... "the People" only get to vote for the candidates who have made "the Lesters" happy. And no doubt, that fact will produce a subtle, understated, somewhat camouflaged bending to keep those Lesters happy.
Once you see Lesterland, and the corruption it creates you understand USA-land, and the corruption we suffer. For the United States is Lesterland.
Like Lesterland, the United States also has two elections. One a voting election, where citizens get to select the candidates who will ultimately govern. But the other is a money election, where the candidates who wish to run in the voting election raise the money they need to compete. As in Lesterland, the candidates don't necessarily need to win the money election. But they must do extremely well.
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...there are just as few "relevant funders" in USA-land as there are Lesters in Lesterland.

Less than 0.05% of us — about 150,000 Americans — give enough money to be even noticed by the candidates desperate to fund their campaigns. Even that number is likely an exaggeration. The better number is probably closer to 50,000 Americans (just about the number of "Sheldons" in America) (Really)
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... members of Congress and candidates for Congress spend anywhere between 30% and 70% of their time raising money from this tiny, tiny slice of us. Think of a rat in a Skinner box, learning which buttons to push to get pellets of food, and you have a pretty good sense of the life of a congressman: a constant attention to what must be done to raise money, and to raise money not from all of us, but from the tiniest slice of the 1% of us.
And so what issues might that tiny, tiny slice of the 1% care about? Unemployment? Out-of-control health care costs? Actually reforming Wall Street? Obviously not. The issues that matter to this tiny fraction of the 1% are not the issues that matter to America.
This is the corruption of USA-land. And it will only ever change if we change the way we fund elections.
... if we adopted a system to fund campaigns like the one proposed by Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Maryland, The Grassroots Democracy Act, then "the funders" would be "the People." If members raised the funds they needed from small contributions only, then many more of us would be the "relevant funders." And thus when members were responsive to their "funders," they would thus be responsive to that many more of us.
That, after all, was the Framers' original design. James Madison promised us a Congress "dependent upon the people alone." "Alone." We've got instead a Congress dependent upon the people and dependent upon the Lesters.
We need to find a way back to Madison's original design, so that we can find a way to restore again a government that works. Leaving Lesterland is the critical first step. Congress could do that tomorrow.

Good post, Ann.
We all know that money/power corrupts. When one has enough money, they tend to buy their way into power. Romney tried, fortunately it didn't work for him. Too bad all the money spent on campaign funding wasn't put to use to help the needy in America. There is plenty of money available, however it is mis-managed. Cutting funds to balance the budget doesn't appear to be done with much thought. Social Security should not be a budget concern. It is not a cost to the government. The cost, if any, is paying back to the SS fund what was taken from it to fund other things, like the war in Iraq. It is a real sore point with me. The constant threats to reduce the SS funds to those who rely on it to survive, is a crime against the citizens of our country. That is just one issue of others like the costs of healthcare, you mentioned. Control is needed. Privatization has caused much harm. Free-wheeling privateers rely on the poor and the sick to make huge profits. That is a crime against humanity.

So, do you agree that a good answer might be to revamp the regulations on campaign funding?

Absolutely.

Abe F. March wrote:

Absolutely.

I agree!

News report about the Health Care Insurer that I use.  They reported over a Billion Euros in excess profit and have declared that they will refund the excess money to those who paid in. 
The benefits are all inclusive.  The healthcare system that I use is a system that works and is a low cost to the insured.  We can have the same thing in America if given a chance to work.  Those opposed are the Insurance companies who won't be able to reap the huge profits.  They promote the false theory that people will suffer from Obamacare and those who need the coverage buy into their lies.  As we have observed, many people are more ready to believe lies than the truth.
As for the title to this thread, there is no one reason that Washington is corrupt.  I think that much has to do with campaign funding.  Rewarding those who supported the candidacy of the politician is a large part of the problem.  Pay back comes in many forms much of which has to do with supporting the individual or firm that put them in office.  The citizens suffer while the rich get richer. 
I've seen a number of Presidents in my lifetime.  The President that I feel was the most honest was Jimmy Carter.  I don't think any politician can be totally honest and survive.

The majority rules.

The monarchy supported and supports its own.  We have our own "monarchy" of the global wealthy. The get each other elected; leave office and hire each other to lobby; and the nepotism continues.

I am not sure why this old thread was brougnt back up, especially when there are other threads that have as much to do with events that are current.

For instance, yesterday there was another mass shooting - this one taking place in our state capitol.  The only person to respond to my post about it thought I was LC.  Don't get me wrong, I have no problem being confused with her.  We do not often share the same political views, but I envy her artistic sense, and respect her contributions to this writer's thread as a commercially successful author of non-fiction books.  No one else has commented at all, even though it is still another example of the need for stronger gun control, and a situation that, to my mind, should be at the top of our list of important current concerns.

Two years ago today, the Occupy Wallstreet began.  Haven't heard anything about that, especially that it still exists and is working behind the scenes to help bring about equality, and works continually and effectively, in quiet ways, for the rights of a stronger middle class.

I doubt that the threat to Obamacare is as strong as the media would like us to believe, but the United States is not Europe.  We are one very large entity, and that fact alone  makes our situation very different and more complex than that of the far smaller European countries.

Our president recently spoke to the fact that 5 years after the financial crisis, the wealthy citizens and corporations are still profiting far more than the middle class.  This fact is what the OP for this thread was all about.

As far as honesty in politics is concerned, I see that as a red herring to the main issue.  Perhaps Jimmy Carter was an honest man.  That has very little to do IMO with being an effective leader. The man was an extremely ineffectual leader.  I have to say that I agree with Nicollo Machiavelli when he says that morality and effective leadership are not connected. In my opinion, the best president from modern times was Bill Clinton, and Clinton's morality was clearly in question.

Ann, my opinions on the issues you bring forth run pretty much in sync with yours.  I choose gun control.  As I heard one doctor say, she doesn't want to be a gunshot specialist.

I see no equality on the horizon, in fact with more and more technology replacing human workers I see the middle class, the working class, without meaningful work and working at barely subsistence wages. I think the birth rate will go down as children will be a luxury.  The wealthy class controls the world; they're going to use their influence to keep their power. The ordinary person doesn't have a chance because so many of them are bamboozled by the powerful's propaganda to keep them in line.

Everyone except the very wealthy and international corporate/industrial magnates was much better off under Clinton (excuse the potential pun) than subsequent to his time in office.  Only the international, global power and wealthy have continued to gain wealth and protect what they have.  For everyone else it's been a steady, downward slide.  The country went from a time of hope to now a time of blaming, complaining and destroying.  Somebody needs to wake up to reality, here.

Because of propaganda again and the self-serving "hate Obama" campaign by representatives, Obamacare has a hard go - and it will miraculously make a positive difference in spite of the "yields" in putting it together.  To allow the representatives to not fun it would be proof that the idiots have taken over the ballot boxes in combination with the selfish who have insurance and will let everyone else die for all they care, the disabled, the elderly, the children -