On Mon, Feb 26, 2007 at 03:43:40PM -0500, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: > On Mon, Feb 26, 2007 at 11:30:23AM -0800, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: > > > > hm.. okay, I see what you mean. Well, first, take the money out of > > politics -- publicly funded elections. Second, provide room and board > > for representatives while serving in washington. third, pay them the > > mean amount for their district so that they are *really* motivated to > > improve the situation for their constituency because they reap the > > rewards of that as well. I know its totally flawed and wacky, but hey, > > I like it! ;) > > A > > Brilliant! You want to make things worse? Pork barrel politics is a > *terrible* problem right now, and you want to provide *additional* > motivations for congressmen and senators to have *more* parochial > attitudes? I agree that is potentially (and with the crop of politicians we've had in my lifetime, certainly) a likely outcome, it is not my intention. The intention is to get politicians to actually pay attention to their constituents -- that is, the human beings -- they represent. That does not have to necessarily convert to pork barrel spending. Ideally, I'd like to see a wholesale change in the means to getting into office because i think a lot of good would fall from that. Right now, one's ability to get into office is essentially equivalent to one's ability to raise money, on the one hand, from big business by doing what they ask; while claiming, on the other hand, to be looking out for the little guy. There is a fundamental problem there. Do you have a proposal for solving that problem? A
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature