As long as we're going to allow money to pollute & distort politics, and as long as we refuse to require term limits, this is going to happen.
We can bitch and moan about it all we want, but we're ignoring the bigger picture. We're certainly good at that.
I strongly disagree with you on term limits, Mac. You need people with experience on how the government works to get things done. Term limits throw those people out as soon as they get to the point where they could get anything done.
If you get the money out of politics with both spending limits on candidates, as well as donation limits on individuals and banning PAC's altogether, you won't need term limits. It's the obscene amounts of money needed to run for public office that are poisoning the well, and keeping politicians beholding to the biggest donors.
Citizen's United needs to be legislated out of existence, but political lobbying and fundraising is now a big bucks industry with its own lobbyists. Any time you have billionaires spending $50 million dollars funding one party, it's not healthy at all. How much more is it worth to these people to make these kinds of investments? What are these people getting in return for their money? Is it any wonder that the working people of America have been consistently screwed over since Republicans took control of the economy under Ronald Reagan?
In Canada, we had a system whereby our taxes funded the election campaigns. About $2 per person. The parties received the election money according to the number of votes received. Of when the Conservatives won the election, they cancelled this funding, and sadly, the Liberals haven't reinstated it. But it was VERY effective keeping votes from being bought by moneyed interests. Once Conservatives killed the program, wages stagnated and the wealth gap increased.
