Given the current economic crisis, we should expect lawmakers to willingly relinquish their cushy, expensive Washington pads and establish primary offices in their home states, among their friends, neighbors and voters. They could thereby patriotically save the taxpayers at least part of the money they gave away to Henry Paulson. They would have an allowance for staff, offices and limited travel. All meetings would be conducted by telecommunication, like it’s the 21st century.
Further, lawmakers will be reminded daily, up close and in person, of the wishes of those who brought them. There won’t be another misbegotten, taxpayer-financed, Wall Street bailout when directives are delivered by the irate face to face and in the same time zone.
Although this plan will not keep lobbyist entirely at bay, it should make their lives considerably more difficult, a big plus.
Next, the talking heads residing in the New York-Washington corridor should be banned from the air waves. They talk only to each other, being elites and all, and not one of them has had an independent or creative thought in years. We don’t need any more pundits from Yale, Columbia or NYU; we don’t need Brian, Katie or Charlie; we don’t need anyone else from an East Coast think tank giving us their pompous, arrogant version of reality.
There is a continent of alternatives. Let’s get an assessment of the options to Paulson’s opinions from, say, an economist at the University of Missouri; an ungarbled analysis of the Russia-S. Ossetia situation from someone without a vested interest in getting it wrong, maybe a political analyst from the University of Idaho; let’s find people who understand the catastrophe of a toxic ruling class and who won’t lose their jobs for telling the truth right out loud. We’ve had enough of the smug politics of condescension.
Getting our news from the western side of the Alleghenies and keeping our elected lawmakers home are actions that could go far toward saving our democracy.
If the United States can elect an Obama, it can do anything.
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