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Guest Post: How Much Would It Cost To Buy Congress Back From Special Interests?
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
How Much Would It Cost To Buy Congress Back From Special Interests?
Here's a thought: let's buy our Congress back from the special interests who now own it.
We all know special interests own the U.S. Congress and the Federal machinery of governance (i.e. regulatory capture). How much would it cost the American citizenry to buy back their Congress? The goal in buying our Congress back from the banking cartel et al. would not be to compete with the special interests for congressional favors--it would be to elect a Congress which would eradicate their power and influence altogether.
A tall order, perhaps, but certainly not impossible, if we're willing to spend the money to not just match special interest contributions to campaigns but steamroll them.
A seat in the U.S. Senate is a pricey little lever of power, so we better be ready to spend $50 million per seat. Seats in smaller states will be less, but seats in the big states will cost more, but this is a pretty good average.
That's $5 billion to buy the Senate.
A seat in the House of Representatives is a lot cheaper to buy: $10 million is still considered a lot of money in this playground of power. But the special interests-- you know the usual suspects, the banks, Wall Street, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Big Tobacco, the military-industrial complex, Big Ag, public unions, the educrat complex, trial lawyers, foreign governments, and so on--will fight tooth and nail to maintain their control of the Federal machinery, so we better double that to $20 million per seat. Let's see, $20 million times 435....
That's $8.7 billion to buy the House of Representatives.
It seems we're stuck with the corporate toadies on the Supreme Court, but the President could scotch the people's plans to regain control of their government, so we better buy the office of the President, too.
It seems Obama's purchase price was about $100 million, but the special interests will be desperate to have "their man or woman" with the veto power, so we better triple this to $300 million.
Add these up and it looks like we could buy back our government for the paltry sum of $14 billion. This is roughly .0037% of the Federal budget of $3.8 trillion, i.e. one-third of one percent. That is incredible leverage: $1 in campaign bribes controls $300 in annual spending--and a global empire.
Once we bought back our government, what would be the first items on the agenda? The first item would be to eradicate private bribes, a.k.a. private campaign contributions and lobbying.
If you allow $1 in campaign contributions, then you also allow $10 million. There is no way to finesse bribery, so it has to be cut and dried: no member of Congress can accept any gift or contribution of any nature, monetary or otherwise, and all campaigns will be publicly financed.
Is this system perfect? Of course not. There is no perfect system. But the point here is that a system which allows even a $1 private contribution to a campaign cannot be restricted; after the courts have their say, then all attempted limitations prove worthless.
So it's really all or nothing: either we put our government up for auction to the highest bribe, or we ban all gifts and private campaign financing and go with public financing of all elections in the nation.
That is the only practical and sane solution. Any proposal that seeks to finesse bribery will fail, just like all previous attempts at campaign finance reform.
Any member of Congress who accepts a gift, trinket, meal, cash in an envelope, etc. will lose their seat upon conviction of accepting the gift. Once again, you can't finesse bribery. It has to be all or nothing, and the only way to control bribery is to ban it outright.
As for lobbying, thanks to a Supreme Court dominated by corporate toadies, it will be difficult to ban lobbying outright. However, that doesn't mean Congress shouldn't try to force the toadies on the Supreme Court to make a distinction between a corporation with $100 billion in assets and billions to spend on bribes and a penniless citizen.
(Those two are not coincidental; in a nation run by and for corporations, the citizens all end up penniless unless they own or manage said corporations, or work for a Federal fiefdom which can stripmine the nation at will.)
Congress should pass a law banning paid-for lobbying. If a citizen wants to go to Congress and advocate a position, they are free to do so--but they can't accept money to do so. If they receive any compensation from any agency, enterprise, foreign government, other citizen, you name it, from any source, then they will be sentenced to 10 years of fulltime community service in Washington D.C., picking up trash, etc.
If the Supreme Court toadies strike down that law, then here's another approach:
Require all paid lobbyists to wear clown suits during their paid hours of work.
In addition, all lobbyists are required to wear three placards, each with text of at least two inches in height.
The first placard lists their total annual compensation as a lobbyist.
The second lists the special interest they work for.
The third lists the total amount of money that special interest spent the previous year on lobbying, regulatory capture, bribes to politicos and political parties, etc.
Every piece of paper issued by lobbyists must be stamped in large red letters, "This lobbying paid for by (special interest)", and every video, Powerpoint presentation, etc. must also be stamped with the same message on every frame.
The second item on the agenda is a one-page tax form. The form looks like the current 1040 form except it stops at line 22: TOTAL INCOME. A progressive flat tax is then calculated from that line. Once again, you cannot finesse bribery or exemptions, exclusions, loopholes and exceptions. Once you allow exemptions, exclusions, loopholes and exceptions, then you've opened Pandora's Box of gaming the system, and the financial Elites will soon plow holes in the tax code large enough to drive trucks through while John Q. Citizen will be paying full pop, just like now.
The entire charade of punishing and rewarding certain behaviors to pursue some policy has to end. Any deduction, such as interest on mortgages, ends up creating perverse incentives which can and will be gamed. It's really that simple: you cannot finesse bribery or exemptions, exclusions and loopholes, because these are two sides of the same coin.
The tremendous inequality in income, wealth, power and opportunity which is distorting and destroying our nation all flow from the inequalities enabled by bribery and tax avoidance. The only way to fix the nation is to eliminate bribery (campaign contributions and lobbying) entirely, and eliminate tax avoidance entirely by eliminating all deductions, exemptions, loopholes, etc. State total income from all sources everywhere on the planet, calculate tax, done.
When you think about how tiny $14 billion is compared to the $3.8 trillion Federal budget and the $14.5 trillion U.S. economy, it makes you want to weep; how cheaply we have sold our government, and how much we suffer under the whip of those who bought it for a pittance.
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dup.
If by "special interest" you mean "the Pentagon" i would say "about a 10 million man Army." Don't even get me started on "those other guys" called "the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps." Stick 'em in the heart of Europe and the Med and when not rotating in and out of all of BO's glorious wars let them admire probably the greatest man made and natural beauty they will ever see. Needless to say "there's a need for some American men over there." Or at least that's what the girls have told me.
A rope is much cheaper.
"A" rope is about 535 too few.
It is the only answer but of course can never happen... vested interests would never allow it!
So simple really... ban all paid lobbying, and 100% publicly fund all Congressional and Presidential elections. Novel isn't it... politicians campaigning on policies aimed at the majority of votes instead of the majority of wealth and power... oh shit, that would be a democracy wouldn't it... what was I thinking?
How much would it take to see this article on the front page of the WSJ and Times tomorrow morning?
I see this as absurd as well.
But, in a "Modest Proposal" sort of way. In fact, it might be better to have pushed the envelop much further into even more silliness.. and adjusted for a potential bidding war. Maybe we should but a small island nation too - where each member of congree can have his own island complete with slaves (naked, hot ones too).
Yes!!! We could legalize the constitution!
Not buying. No sane person goes back to an ex-wife.
triumph of "hope over reason" indeed. Of course the numbers don't lie. That's precisely what happens if you look at the numbers.
Medicare part D is now pushing $20 TRILLION unfunded liability in what, 6 years? And all it cost was a $2 MILLION payoff to Billy Tauzin. Nice. These guys are 20 cent hookers and we taxpayers are idiots for using them.
y'all is mah hos now, you work fer me!
in that case i will run for congress and give the state a discount to buy me at 1% of the cost.
Boiled rope, tar and feathers and a nice gallows platform would cost far less.
I like that idea.
I wonder how much shit would fly if we staged a protest on the Washington Mall complete with pitchforks, barrels of tar, bags of feathers, rope and a gallows platform.
We wouldn't even have to use them in order to get the attention of Congress . . . but it would be nice if we did get to use them.
Sorry Charles, they've already cost us quite enough. No mas. Off with their heads and call it a day.
who knew Mexican were so smart! or are you from Mars? Alien? or is your name Alan but you spell it funny?
any way! I Love You! Man!! OFF WITH THEIR Treasonist Heads!
Fuck the Lobby Whores like they FUCK YOU!!
Corporations Own the Lobby!
The Lobby Owns the Government!
Law Enforcement works for the Duly Elected Lobby Whores!
We the People = Screwed!
Once we get a super majority in both houses we can impeach the entire supreme court and replace them with strict constitutionalists. An amendment also that former prosecutors can not hold a seat on the court would be a good idea also. When we have Supreme court members accepting bribes through their wife and nobody in either house even mentions it then you know the depths of their depravity.
Are these the strict constitutionalists that think corporations are people?
How about we just appointed some people that are honest and see what happens. (Not that honest people actually exist, but it's a cool idea).
The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.
a stanford prison experiment for everyone.
And what if spooky dude or some other consortium of Billionaires
comes back and says, I'll double your $14Bn if you work for me?
Violence is my last option. - Chuck Norris
Violence is never the answer. That plays into the hand of the oppressors.
How much is Tyler's monthly bandwidth bill? Seriously. The hygiene-motivator theory is breaking down. Things like the sexual revolution and civil rights movement worked. People no longer think they need to buy extravagant luxuries for their 2nd or 3rd spouse, which is in actuality typically a person's 15th+ mate. People are no longer acting out of "white flight" for housing, as the people who receive transfer payments are predominantly Caucasians. Gadgets are at a plateau. The only apps out there are social media and gaming, and there is really just some much of that anyone values. The same innovations are making spending money on childrens college obsolete. Heck, between a couple of years of ZH and CNBC I feel I do know more about economics than even the bernake. I mean that sincerely.
So if housing, education, gadgets are out ... what is next? Roman era litters now called "luxury autos." All of the top end advert agencies are no longer able to market based on horsepower, safety,styling, accoutrements. So they are now into the "Smart is the new rich" Everybody wants to be the ubermensch super spy. Or more likely, everybody who has a L.A.S. degree needs research fodder to justify all that psychology and sociology.
Well, here we are to spy on/analyze/market to. ZH is one of the better aggregations of peoples ideas on the net right now. You got really rich people posting here who could be on their private islands. You got trolls who could be picking fights at the local tavern, but are quickly absorbed and whose agenda's is uplifted pretty quick.
If Glen Beck regularly gives ZH mention, don't you think the lobbyist are going to come here and then "educate" our congress critters about what is really going on?
In most religious scriptures it is the word of prophets that changes thing for the better. Not the sword (or Chuck Norris beard) of a warlord.
*not saying any of us are prophets, but we are pretty good at predicting the future.
Let us assume 5 percent of the population is woken up and half of those are able to contribute. That comes to 1,866. per patriot. Count me in! Can we start a fund or campaign? Something like Keiser's crash the banksters campaign. Let's start a take back our government campaign. We Get Alex Jones and all the other's to promote it to our patriot brothers. The government would probably confiscate the fund before we could use it. Thoughts ? Suggestions?
shut up and turn out the lights! dancing with the starz is on!
How Much Would It Cost To Buy Congress Back From Special Interests?
I'm not sure playing dirty with Congress is the best way to eradicate dirty play in Congress long term.
Besides, in this context the legal mechanism for taking a broom to management is called an Article V Constitutional Convention (hey, it's almost like those Founding Fathers guys anticipated this situation).
Spend the $14b on PR and the inevitable court cases.
It would be nice to see one of our multi-deca-billionaires get a bee in their bonnet about this instead of playing God in Africa.
in the name of transparency, lets just skip the ellection process alltogether, and just auction off the seat on ebay, with the proceeds going to pay down the debt
OK, can we start something here?
I'm in with $1K to start. The "zero" party. (no corruption, no deficit, no debt)!
Or are we just going to vent and gripe, or have fun?
nationalize the media, and cap spending. most of the corporate media interests run their news programming at a loss, they shouldn't mind.
All we really need are 535 trees and an equal amount of rope.
Expecting Congress to pass laws that would prevent themselves from becoming rich would be like expecting Al Capone to willingly turn in his machine guns and baseball bats.
a piece of rope
would be a lot cheaper...
If I may contribute a thought to this conversation:
There's an old saying, "You can't cheat an honest man." When we look at the mechanics of a variety of popular, old-fashioned con games and swindles there is one common thread through all of them; in order for the game to work, the mark has to want in on a deal where they get something for nothing (or something they shouldn't have) at the expense of someone else.
If we are going to complain about being swindled, we have to take a step back and ask ourselves how it is that we managed to get ourselves so fleeced to begin with?
We need a promise that they vote to eliminate the senate and replace it with a direct democracy. So instead of the senate the people vote directly via computer. So we have the house, the people and then the president. If we could get them to vote for only one term, term limits that would be a good idea also.
I am guessing 5.56 would b cheaper than rope. Less tangle time at the beginning, works from alnger distance, no clean up. Let em lay for the vulchers and rats. Recycle it is the green thing to do.
It's not so much the people, as it is the system. If those elected don't get their snouts in the trough, they are history. The fundamental problem is that the budgeting process doesn't exist. The Federal system of spending, ie, enormous bills with enough pork to get passed and can only be passed or vetoed in whole, is designed to overspend, which creates debt.
Budgeting is to draw up one's list of priorities and then spend what can be afforded.
One way to do this would be to break the bills into their constituent items, have each legislator assign a percentage value to each item, then reassemble the bill in order of preference. The president would then draw the line at what would be passed. This way, the congress gets to prioritize and the president sets the limit.
There would be limited pressure to overspend, because the few items on the line would have less constituency than those being asked to fund them.
This would seriously reduce federal spending on local projects, but if we had a local community banking system, which used the profits generated by the community, to fund community projects, rather than send it all to New York, so it can be lent to Washington at interest, this could work.
Suffice to say, we will have to wait until this system completely blows up before such levels of change can occur.
http://www.banktech.com/articles/229700093?cid=nl_bnk_daily
Top U.S. Lobbying Banks Got Biggest Bailouts
1. [PDF]
A Fistful of Dollars:Lobbying and the Financial Crisis; Financial ...
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis by. Deniz Igan ...
www.imf.org/external/np/res/seminars/2009/arc/pdf/Mishra1.pdf
those same firms that got those HUGE Bailouts! Guess what???? are the largest contributers to LOBBY's and Government!! who knew? it was that simple?????
dont worry! now that the facts are here! the Sheepeople will start caring!!
Agreed. Everything you have have described is the symptom/solution to the american two party political system.
I learned from ZH how the original George Washington foresaw all of this (two parties becomming a worse tyranny than imperialistic parliments or monarchies)
I actually think 2012 is going to be absolutely pivitol. The publicans (an maybe dems/media behind the scenes) are playing a deep game with Michelle Bachman. Positioning her as the leader of the Tea party. Her public and private career has been 100% central planning and taxation. The "tax code" is envogue again, in the MSM, just like it was during Reagan's term.
They either build her up as the strawman candidate, then have another Pub or Dem debate on this issue. OR she pulls a reagan/perot and says "I know where we went wrong with how we tax and spend in this country". By election time the people are going to figure out that the country was not able to fix the stool by mucking with two of the three legs (monetary [price stability], fiscal [job creation policy]) so that leaves only one thing: People dont want to be productive,industrious or generous under the tax code as it is now. Rich, middle, or poor.
This would of course have the sole purpose of the two parties preserving thier way of life, and ironically creating more work and money for themselves by removing thier current broken way of governing.... to later roll it all in back again. But any improvement for the people is improvement.
Also: I seriously hope the other posters that are advocating violence are trolling. It is the wrong solution. Checkout how that worked in India v. Britian. It did not work well, 'till ghandi started steering the ship.
Zero hedge needs your donations.
Tyler is to proud to ask, but I am not.
Come on buzztroll, JW, mynhair, rynak, akak, hamy, gunslinger, dochen,yen cross,gwar, jlee, and all the rest. Even 20 bucks would help. You want to keep independent media viable and have a place to fight, dont you!
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This is a stupid article. I mean, come on, "How Much Would It Cost To Buy Congress Back From Special Interests?"
Really, if you have to ASK, you can't afford it ! Everybody knows that.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/rulings/promise-broken/?page=2
Promise Broken rulings on the The Obameter http://static.politifact.com.s3.amazonaws.com/images/fill-lede-box.gif); border-bottom: #cccccc 3px solid; border-left: #cccccc 1px solid; padding-bottom: 10px; background-color: #e5e5e5; padding-left: 9px; padding-right: 9px; border-right: #cccccc 1px solid; padding-top: 10px;">
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previous Page 2 of 3 nexti think that the captive bolt is the most economical way to go, far cheaper than .40 or .308.
but it would be far to quick, shouldn't we make it slow, so they can contemplate their sins?
I am a dig believer in yeilding to my fellow Country Mans wishes.. it makes me feel good in side to go along with instead of lead all the fucking time..
and I must say that I like your attitude and idea and I would LOVE to help you realize what makes you happy! I am just here to support you in your ideas and enjoy the ride! you have yourself the most loyal wingman on the planet!
Lets make your dreams come true!
we could flip a coin, heads gets the bolt and tails gets the 8 ft sharpened stake attila style.
i believe if we pace ourselves we could finish in a couple of hours, might better use duct tape though, those stakees could get noisy.
We Shall Over Come!!!
I am pro duct tape Brother! or we could just snatch their fucking tongue out with pliers for that matter.. either or.. I am easy! peasy!!
We Shall Over Come!!!
I am pro duct tape Brother! or we could just snatch their fucking tongue out with pliers for that matter.. either or.. I am easy! peasy!!
$5 Billion is more than doable. Pocket change from what we're already paying. Term limits?
How about End the Fed? How much will that cost? When you follow the money it goes all the way back to the printer.
If politicians had to depend on a sound economy for government spending, and for their own paycheck, they'd be more inclined to be honest and do the right thing.
this is another self righteous guide to not accomplishing anything. it is enetertaining though, thank you.
if you want to organize real change, the open internet , subject to government scrutiny, and counterintel by opposition kleptocrats, is not the place to do it.
congress is now a "parthenon" owned by the Oligarchs. Athens and DC have a lot in common.
until you have spent 9 or 10 figures with Clark Construction in DC you have not known pain on this earth!
There's a joke in here about a $5 bat.
Not one thin dime.
They swore an oath.
Try the bastards for high crimes, and misdemeanors.
Enforce the penalty for treason.
Where are America's Sans Culottes?
Hear, hear.
AIPAC buys most elections and drafts most American foreign policy. I believe they get it cheap. They even secure funding for Israel that is then used to buy our govt.
What's to keep the demon elite from out bidding us? Afterall, they can create money out of thin air. I like Gaddafi's idea better. Spend all that money to further arm the U. S. citizens!
Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez
A bat to the head of a few of them is a much cheaper option!
Buy back Congress? Certainly not gold, or silver, or dollars; hot lead.
and don't forget that US no longer is Independent......
it is suffocating from debt .....
US loosing it’s Independence
Nah, they'd take our money, then theirs too.
The system is beyond repair.
Why the frequent articles from this wanker? Sure, a fair bit of what he says is reasonable. But in the end, he really doesn't get it. Why a _progressive_ flat tax, when a flat tax would already see those with higher incomes paying more? And as for all the vituperation against lobbying, look, moron, the problem isn't that lobbying leads to abuse of power, the problem is the power to abuse in the first place. In other words, get government the hell out of all manner of things it has no business meddling in, regardless of whether the meddling comes from the left (economics) or right (morality).
Blagojevich was in the process of discovering the market value of a senate seat. Now we're left to guess. Some above have already suggested a hooker conversion rate, but if the congressional exchange market is based in Utah, gold and silver can be used to help keep the market stable.
No, no, no! You have it backwards. The problem is government. Many lobbyists are just trying to protect companies from sleazy politicians. Congress is like the mafia. Politicians (and various activist groups) will loudly criticize a corporation or business sector until "big pharma" or "big oil" or Wal mart coughs up a fat campaign contribution or a spot on their corporate boards. Once the payment arrives, the criticism and threats of boycotts or punitive laws stops.
What we need is a small, limited government that does not have the power to dole out goodies or make threats. That is the only thing that will reduce lobbying. If Congress could not redistribute wealth nor create havoc, there would be no reason to lobby.
No! NO!! NOO!!! we are going to prosecute them ALL! for Treason and NONE of them will be able to steal Grandma's Social Security EVER!! AGAIN!!!
There will be no this or that.. it will be ALL! in TOTAL!!
Actually it would cost about 3x that, because the challengers need to be funded too.
OTOH, how much would 435+100+1 bullets cost?
Just give Colbert's SuperPAC, but we don't need much, just a few million, and then start a bank, leverage 10000 times, a voila, we have more power than Wall Street.....
Dbl podt
Go long mercenaries with big-ass sniper rifles and scopes.
Cheap as chips!
NOTE: 'Chips' = Freedom Fries
Wouldn't it be cheaper to repeal the 17th amendment and remove the lobbying threat to the Senate in the first place?