[quote=UCGal]I’m not sure I agree with that but I *do* agree with a radical change to campaign finance. Limit personal contributions of actual humans to some fixed amount. Eliminate PACs and Super PACs. Eliminate Union financial contributions to political candidates and paid “issue” ads. Eliminate corporate contributions and paid issue ads. Corporations and unions can ask employees/members to contribute personally or volunteer personally, but not coerce. After all – we have free will – folks won’t contribute or volunteer if they don’t agree. No coercion of any kind allowed. (My company “suggests” that employees above a certain paygrade contribute to a PAC – I have yet to do it because I disagree with pretty much every candidate the PAC funds. If they ever even hinted it was required I’d make such a stink…)
And severely restrict lobbying. Shut down lobbyist-for-hire K street firms. Citizens (human beings) should be able to go make their case. Employees of a company should be able to go make a case for their industry. (In other words – it’s ok for a company to have a DIRECT employee who’s job it is to make the case for their industry.) But having 3rd party firms involved in it, providing access, etc, corrupts the system.
But I’m not in charge.[/quote]
The cost of lobbying (which includes campaign finance) is a big part of the inefficnecy of government. First we pay taxes, then we have to pay premiums on products and services so the companies who sell us stuff can afford to hire lobbyists to convince the government to create an environment that benefits them.
To me, if you limit the flow of cash through the government and limit their sphere of influence, you reduce the desire for all the companies to spend money on lobbying efforts.
Keep the money in the hands of the taxpayers in the first place and let the corporations market to the taxpayers to get their money rather than taking it from them and letting politicians and beaurocrats decide where it goes. Cut out the middle man.
This is much more efficient that trying to limit the lobbying effort, which only adds another costly layer of regulation and beurocracy.
From my perspective, Daryl Ratigan is just another lobbyist lobbying for another layer of control.
If the money and influence is running through the government, there will always be lobbyists.
