(Mike Lofgren retired on June 17 after 28 years as a Congressional staffer. He served 16 years as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees). Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general ele ...

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(Mike Lofgren retired on June 17 after 28 years as a Congressional staffer. He served 16 years as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees). Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.

Authors Website: http://newthinking.blogspot.com/

Authors Bio:

Scott Baker is a Managing Editor & The Economics Editor at Opednews, and a former blogger for Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and Global Economic Intersection.

His anthology of updated Opednews articles "America is Not Broke" was published by Tayen Lane Publishing (March, 2015) and may be found here:

http://www.americaisnotbroke.net/

Scott is a former and current President of Common Ground-NY (http://commongroundnyc.org/), a Geoist/Georgist activist group. He has written dozens of articles for Common Ground's national publication, GroundSwell, and has advocated for the Georgist Land Value Tax to public and political audiences.

A complete list of his publications can be found here:

Click Here

He is also New York State Coordinator and Senior Advisor for the Public Banking Institute

Click Here, which seeks to promote Public Banking. The PBI is chaired by another OEN blogger, Ellen Brown.
Scott has appeared on TV/Radio and in in-person Presentations to explain the principles of Georgism, Greenbacking, and State Banking. These may also be found on his personal blog: http://newthinking.blogspot.com/

Scott has a dozen progressive petitions on Change.org which may be found here:

http://chn.ge/10nUAmJ

Scott was an I.T. Manager for a major New York university for over two decades where he earned a Certificate for Frontline Leadership.

He had a video game published in Compute! Magazine: Click Here

Scott is a graduate and adjunct faculty of the Henry George School of Social Science in New York City.

Scott is a modern-day Renaissance Man with interests in economics, science and all future-forward topics.

He has been called an "adept syncretist" by Kirkus Discoveries for his novel, NeitherWorld - a two-volume opus blending Native American myth, archaeological detail, government conspiracy, with a sci-fi flair http://amzn.to/10nUoDV

Scott grew up in New York City and Pennsylvania. He graduated with honors and a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Pennsylvania State University and was a member of the Psychology honor society PSI CHI.

Today he is an avid bicyclist and ride co-leader in a prominent bike advocacy organization.

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