Should the american political process be starved of Corporate money!

Returing some power back to the citizens, will mean outlawing political donation from Corporations!

Limit the money (the total collected, not just on a donor by donor basis) and make the funding process more transparent.

Only if you include union goon money

Only if you include union goon money
All money.

American law regards the corporation to have the same rates as an individual...

No. As long as the voters know who is contributing to the candidate. And that goes for the labor unions.
The real problem in this nation is the lack of term limits. The founding fathers wanted term limits and they left it to the Congress to establish limits after testing the system established. It was John Quincy Adams who screwed things up by taking up residence in the House after his one term as President.The pols used him as an excuse to ignore their commitment to establish term limits. Nonsense like: It would be an insult to our former President to pass laws on term limits while he still wanted to remain in the House. Of course when he started to gather dust they discovered that he had died there. By that time the pols had conveniently forgotten about term limits.

How about we only allow poor people to hold public office. It might work, since their lifestyle already shows an aversion to greed and ambition.

No. The problem is not money - the problem is the lack of visibility into who is donating to whom, and the inevitable earmarked appropriations that are the standard quid pro quo.

Solution:

Eliminate donations from groups (corporations, unions, associations, etc.). Only individuals should be able to donate to campaigns. Campaigns/candidates must post donation information on a publicly accessible website within 3 days of receipt. No donations allowed one week prior to an election.

All proposed earmarked appropriations to be publicly listed on government websites prior to a vote being taken. The required information to include the recipient, the sponsor, the amount, the purpose, and donations from the recipient to the sponsor or the sponsor's party (including donations from key individuals who work for/are associated with the recipient). Eliminate the ability to add riders of unrelated crap to other legislation.

from an ditorail in village magazine on novembewr 10th:

A fair political system demands that parties are funded equally and this can be done only by the State on a fair basis. It demands that all candidates who obtain the sanction of, say, 500 electors in their constituency, get access to equal funds, which may or may not be pooled in the case of parties. In the interim between elections, parties should be funded on the basis of their electoral support, with a proviso that newly emerging parties that attract the support – via signatures – of, say, 10,000 electors, get an agreed funding as well.

full editorial: http://www.villagemagazine.ie/article.asp?sid=1&sud=9&aid=725

i agree with the article. for a political system to e fair, there must be equality of opportunity in candidates getting their message to the people

for my liking, too many people go into the ballot boxes with too little information and more people vote on face recognition than on actual policies

I might can agree the problem isn't just money, boe, but it's certainly at the heart of it.
Corporations legally have the rights of citizens. They also have wealth beyond what any citizen could amass. And, they have great influence over our government.
This influence wouldn't be such a big deal if those running our government cared about public service more than greed and power.
Therefore, I think corporations should no longer have the same rights as individual citizens. And, senators and representatives should make next to nothing and not be allowed to accept bribes.

http://www.appeal-democrat.com/articles/2006/01/19/news/local_news/news4.txt

Sutter County supervisors have agreed to spend additional funds for Sacramento lobbyists over the objection of a taxpayer group.

The board voted 4-0 Tuesday night to pay Dunlap, Van Vleck & Brown $2,900 per month to lobby legislators for Sutter County highway projects, including a third bridge connecting Yuba City and Marysville.

In December, the board OK'd paying the same firm $3,800 per month to lobby the Legislature for flood control and highway funds.

The county is trying to get its fair share of billions requested by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for statewide infrastructure improvements.

Robert Mackensen, president of the Sutter County Taxpayers Association, said the county should use its own talent to lobby legislators.

“This community is full of genuine experts on both floods and roads. They'll do a great job for Sutter County,” Mackensen said in a prepared statement.

Mackensen charged that Dunlap, Van Vleck & Brown won the flood control lobbying contract by underbidding, then came back with a “costly additive change order” covering the lobbying effort for roads and bridges.

Another of the original bids from another firm was for $7,000, just over the $6,700 total being paid to Dunlap, Van Vleck & Brown, he said.

“Equally troubling is the fact that (Dunlap, Van Vleck & Brown) with whom the county is entrusting all its foreseeable hopes for roads and flood protection, is a firm that did not even exist a year ago,” he said.


Read The Rest Of The Story (http://www.appeal-democrat.com/articles/2006/01/19/news/local_news/news4.txturl)

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http://www.daily-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060119/NEWS01/601190302/1001

By Rhys Saunders The Daily Times
January 19, 2006

AZTEC -- City commissioners are considering hiring a federal lobbyist. Doing so could cost between $50,000 and $60,000, said Jennifer Hirschburg of the government and public affairs consulting firm Alcalde & Fay.

City Manager David Velasquez said there are several factors that determine the cost of hiring a lobbyist.

"The cost of the federal lobbyist depends on the organization hiring them and the priorities they have set," he said, adding that the budget for the lobbyist had already been approved.

At a workshop on Tuesday, Velasquez, Mayor Mike Arnold and Finance Director John Gallegos met with Hirschburg and Suzanne Eisold, also of Alcalde & Fay, to discuss ways the city could attain federal funding for its projects.

Reag The Rest Of The Story (http://www.daily-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060119/NEWS01/601190302/1001url)

Is hiring a lobbyist because the state politicians are failing to represent their own states enough?

I thought politicians were there to tend to the needs of their own constituencies!

Power = money. Politicians exercise power to attract money, and it's all done "because it's good for you". Businesses don't even have to spend money to get goodies any more, they have to pay protection money to keep lawmakers off their backs. The only way you'll see less money in politics is if lawmakers have less power.

More legislation restricting the rights of the people is not the answer. McCain-Feingold was supposed to get the money out of politics, remember? That's why the assault on the First Amendment was tolerated. Did it work?

How about we only allow poor people to hold public office. It might work, since their lifestyle already shows an aversion to greed and ambition.

Poverty doesn't show an aversion to greed and ambition. Everybody wants stuff. It just shows an inability to get what you want.

Put the homeless in charge, they are more likely to help those that need it, not the corporate scum.

And they couldn't do worse than our current band of bastards running the show.

think of the attack ads they'd run against each other

"Last night Boxcar Fred slept in a trash can. The trash can thus protected him from winds and rains and hails. Vote Boxcar John. A man who knows what it's like to sleep without shelter from wind or rain

there are actually two problems. One being the amount of money needed to run a campaign the other being the frequency of elections. for the House we could cut the amount of money in half by doubling the length of the term. It seems like representatives spend the majority of their time raising money and a minimum of time actually governing. So house to 5 years and senate at 5 also would be my vote. One election every 5 years. Severe limits on spending and severe limits on indirect spending during the election period. And complete disclosure. Might not be a bad idea to supply most of the funding from public sources either.