My idea is to separate the new power that is money from government. This wasn't necessary when the government was conceived because business just wasn't as pervasive then as it is now. My plan involves, among other things, complete transparency in ALL accounts of all those in public office, a complete ban on campaign contributions, and a spending cap on campaigns.

I think these three things are a great start and would promote creativity in campaigns. Not to mention it allows those in power to once again represent THE PEOPLE as apposed to those who have the most money. The legal bribery needs to stop and needs to stop yesterday! If not then we are headed toward the USA becoming a fascist state.

I'd love to hear others' views on this!

If you ban contributions you will have no one but the wealthy in power. How is that going to solve anything?

Where have you been . corruption didn't just start lately .businesses may of been smaller and there bribs smaller but they were payed .
They may not call them bribes . but when you are paid to do something and you do it and its against the law its a bribe . Ask JOHN KERRY SENATOR , He got 19,000,000. for letting the banks do it to us . and there is a long list of demos with different sums given to them by banks . but of course the republicians are the same .
I would vote for a law that says it an automatic death sentence for the to recive any money or favoers from any one or corp. that they pass laws on . it won't stop the bribes but maybe slow it down .

It's already separated from the government-it's called the Federal Reserve. If Americans were self-reliant and didn't depend on the government so much, we could have competing currencies. This would bring the FedGov back within reason. You won't see this anytime soon, as most of the folks in DC make lots of money with the existing system. Check out "The Case For Gold" and "End The Fed" by Dr Ron Paul for more on this.

for years I've been saying we need a fourth branch to balance the other three

it would be

The Executive Branch

The Legislative Branch

The Judicial Branch

and the Audit Branch

I guess you missed where I said there would be spending caps on campaigns. This pretty much levels the playing field. There is more to this than just a cap though.



That's interesting... You could have been joking, can't tell. Assuming you're not I'd like to hear more about how that would act as a check to the other branches. My thought is though, assuming you're serious, that more bureaucracy isn't really going to help anything and just complicate things. If we just sever the tie of money I see it simplifying things greatly.

Well killing them might be a bit over the top... but punishment I definitely agree with. Unfortunately the way the system is now it's all legal and there's no grounds to punish anyone, in the general cases anyway. We have to change the lobbying laws.

Also, the system as it is could work fine if the money was distributed more evenly across more lobbying interests. This used to be the case but I think we all know that's not the case these days.

Actually, I didn't miss the spending caps.. What average citizen has a couple of million to throw away on a house or senate race?

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Again which one of them is poor ... I remember when Johnson got elected he had to hitch hike to washington dc . BUT HE FLEW HOME TO TEXAS IN HIS OWN LEAR JET . HE LIVED ON THE END OF A 32 MILE HY. HE WAS THE ONLY PERSON WHO LIVED ON IT . when he was born he lived in a 1 room cabin . after the elections he owned the pan handel . he was from texas but he made money from all of us and never worked a day in his life ..