Mar
8
Take Our Country Back: A Two Step Process
March 8, 2010 | 1 Comment
TAKING OUR COUNTRY BACK: A TWO-STEP PROCESS
Still think we can work within the system? Still think business as usual in DC can be changed by a little antigovernment sentiment? Well, I don’t. Nothing short of bringing them all home and starting over with a new crop could correct such firmly entrenched arrogance and abuse of power. Case in point: the latest escapades unearthed on Representative Charles Rangel. Rangel is no ordinary garden-variety congressman. This guy has served 20 terms! He is arguably the most powerful man in Congress. As chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, he and his committee hold the purse strings to America. Basically, any legislation that requires funds to be effective is at his mercy. If he and his committee do not approve the funds then the legislation is moot. He is also in charge of writing the tax code. More on that little piece of irony later.
Here’s the short version of the story. But to keep this in perspective, (that’s writing lingo for why Robert is so mad) please keep in mind that this guy is at the top of the heap for setting the example. Rangel accepted what he of all people, or anyone else should have known were corporate sponsored Caribbean trips. Not once, but multiple times. And that’s just the ones that have recently come to light from 2007 and 2008. How should he have known you ask? Well he knew he wasn’t paying for them. And at least on planet Earth, Caribbean trips don’t just fall out of the sky. Granted he is in DC, where the laws of physics are different. You see, that’s part of the problem. I believe in DC it does customarily rain Caribbean vacations. Then there are those two pesky e-mails from his staff warning him that it was not Caribbean Vacation Falling From The Sky Day. Then, apparently because they know how stubborn he is about passing up any freebie, they also sent him a letter. His response to the warnings? Well, it was basically gibberish. But I think what he was trying to do was pin it on his staff, which is beneath contempt. And if that didn’t work, he would employ the argument “you can’t prove I read them”. Then, if that didn’t work, he went into some ramblings about the definition of corporate sponsor. Now that brought me back to the day when my head completely spun around as Bill Clinton said his answer “depended upon what the definition of is is”.
Now before we move on… let’s make this crystal clear: this leader of leaders knew he was accepting free trips to St. Maarten and Antigua from big business. End of story. It wasn’t the first time, but maybe it will be the last for him. But the point is; it’s not just him. This is the climate in Washington, and until we throw them all out on their well tanned butts nothing will change. For the time being Rangel is cooling his heels in the shadows waiting for all this to blow over. Now that’s up to us, isn’t it?
Moving on. It gets better. Remember he heads up the tax writing committee. Guess who forgot to report rental income on his villa in the Dominican Republic? Guess who forgot to list several hundred thousand dollars of additional wealth? Is this the guy you want writing the laws that we have to abide by? One of our members recently took a job with the IRS. He was worried sick that he had not distributed 1099s to everyone falling in the gray area that worked on his rental properties. Oh but wait, that’s not apples to apples. If you work for the IRS, you must be squeaky clean. If you run the IRS (Geithner), or write the tax laws (Rangel) it’s no big deal.
Step One
Of course we throw Rangel out. Because thankfully, in spite of warnings from his staff, his arrogance got him caught. That’s a no-brainer. Step one begins with throwing out all 435 members of Congress and 100 senators. The business climate in DC has corrupted the thought process of so many of them that it would be too much trouble to sort them out. I’m willing to accept a little collateral damage to send a stronger message. End of step one.
Step Two
The real issue is the perverted climate in Washington. Until this climate is eradicated we can never expect to see any noble legislation. Even if you brought in an entirely new group of lawmakers nothing would change because the lobbyists are there waiting to help them get “settled in”. Unless it benefits big business in some way, it just won’t happen. Three quick examples.
1. The bailout of course is probably the best example in history; pouring money into the very institutions that nearly brought upon us the collapse of our monetary system and economy.
2. Look at the changes being proposed to stop owner financing of any kind in real estate. I can only imagine that notion came from the banking industry somehow in order to tighten their grip on the market.
3. And here’s a classic. For over 50 years the government has struggled to put the tobacco industry under FDA supervision. What a waste of time. Why? Because Congress wrote into the legislation that they could not ban nicotine from tobacco products. That’s the addictive part; the part that deprives you of free will to quit. You would have to be as dumb as a bag of hammers to write legislation like that. Or could it be that you have been bought by the tobacco lobby?
So how do we stop all the backroom dealings with special interest groups? The simplest way would be to take some guidance from the court system. I am referring to the “ex parte” rule. That means that generally a judge cannot hear evidence in a case without both sides present. In this case, the American people are one side and special interest groups are the other. We both need to be present. A simple way to do that would be to forbid anyone from approaching a Congressman to influence legislation outside the halls of Congress. Make it a criminal offense for both parties. Simply set up meeting rooms within the halls of Congress and times for legislators to be present to hear input from anyone wishing to influence legislation. C-SPAN must be running. Any printed materials would have to be scanned and made available on the Internet. Now you have true transparency.
The exception of course would be publicly held meetings. “Public invited” is the key term here. So if someone from the mortgage industry wants to talk to an elected official about legislation in his Miami condo, I claim dibs on the bedroom overlooking Biscayne Bay.
Remember that phrase on one of those hugely historic documents? “A government of the people, by the people, for the people”? Well, they are still governing us. But by the people? They’re not paying any attention to us. Money speaks louder than words. They already have all of our money. The only one left “speaking” is big business and special interests. For the people? What a joke.
Robert Clifton, VP PTREIA
North Star Properties of NC, Inc CEO
Comments
1 Comment so far
I agree 100%! Lets get rid of ALL of them. That would get their attention. But the system needs to change too. As long as you have lobbyist bribing the Congress to better their interests instead of the interests of “we the people’s” nothing will change. Remember those words “Change” & “Transparency” from the last election. Well they lied, because nothing has changed and it’s certainly not transparent. The fact is that our tax money is divided up in back room deals by big corporations and corrupt politicians. The ”change” should be that if a politician takes a bribe (any compensation from a lobbyist) it should be illegal. They should lose their seat and be put in jail. It’s that way for the rest of “we the people”, the laws should apply to the law makers too.