Obstructing Democrats is the primary interest of pretty close to half of Congress.
True, the Democrats did get half-assed health care and financial reform bills passed -- both look like bullet-riddled mailboxes on a Texas country road.
The one overriding reason that the Congress doesn't get anything done that is effective for us is that they have no stake in it. Whether you and I have health care or protection from the banksters screwing us over is that the members of Congress don't have to worry about any of that. They don't have their heart in it because they don't have to. They're not affected by it, one way or the other.
How many people do you know who make $174,000 per year? I don't know any, and chances are that you don't, either. The only people we're allowed to vote for are chosen, not by us, but by one of the two political parties, and those unsatisfactory and limited choices are determined by contributions from the largest corporations and financial institutions.
There's no way a person making that kind of money can represent us. So, who can? Well, it would appear obvious that people like us can represent us if they're people like us.
The one thing that most defines us is how much money we make. And, like it or not, that's because the amount of money determines how we live our lives. We have no choice about that, just as we have no choice about who we vote for. The either A or B choice is the logical fallacy of the excluded middle. It doesn't include all the rest of it besides A and B.
I don't have any representation in Congress for two reasons. One is that all the people from my district and state are Republicans. The other is that they make $174,000 a year and I don't make anywhere near that.
The most reasonable way for us to be represented in Congress is by income distribution. Here's an approximation of how that breaks down as percentages of the population...
Super rich -- 1% Above $500,000As you can see, members of Congress are in the top 15%.
Top middle class -- 14% Above $100,000
Lower middle class -- 34% Above $35,000
Working class -- 35% Above $16,000
Lower class -- 16% $0 to $16,000
Using these percentages to apportion Congress by income distribution works out to the following five groups of representatives, starting at the top...
House of Representatives:In the House there would be 370 out of 435 representing 85% of the people, d 61 representing the top middle class, and 4 representing the super rich.
4
61
148
152
70
Senate:
1
14
34
35
16
In the Senate there would be 85 representing 85% of the people, 14 representing the top middle class and 1 representing the super rich.
Don't worry about the super rich having so little representation, they don't need it, they've got lots of money.
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