HOW TO GET GOOD GOVERNMENT

 

 

Twelve years ago I wrote an essay (and I'm pretty sure I mailed it to the White House) telling Barack Obama what he needed to do if he wanted any chance of being a successful president in getting legislation passed. And I told him he had a window of 90 days from inauguration day to get anything meaningful done.

 

I was right, as it turned out, as the Affordable Care Act passed in late 2009 was a Rube Goldberg mess with no public option- no "Medicare for All" that he didn't even attempt, as he tried- and failed- to get a single Republican vote in the Senate to avoid a filibuster. So they had to use procedural legerdemain to get that bill through. Which was basically the "RomneyCare bill passed by Republican Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney years earlier.

 

At the time I wrote my essay, in January of 2009, Obama and the Democrats had a large majority in the House and an almost veto proof majority in the Senate (59 votes, if memory serves).

 

In the arrogance of those times, Obama did stupid things like selecting sitting senators for important posts (Hillary Clinton of New York for Secretary of State; Joe Biden of Delaware for V.P., ) and a governor of Arizona- Janet Napolitano, if memory serves, for Homeland Security.

 

It never occurred to anybody that the Republicans would flip the House in 2 years and the Senate six years later in 2014. Biden is making the same mistake now in picking at least two sitting members of the House for posts, even though the Dems just lost over 10 seats there, have a razor thin majority, and vacated House seats are unfilled until the next election.

 

Why did that happen? Because in spite of all of the smart people in the Obama Administration, they were blinded by their success in 2008. After the 2010 midterms when they lost the House, they were never able to pass any critical legislation again- not even the most obvious, popular, gun control measures after the Newtown, Connecticut Sandy Hook elementary school massacre in 2012.

 

My advice then- and now: the number one priority has to be campaign finance reform. And it was- and is- easy. There is no necessity to amend the First Amendment to reverse the Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United v. FEC (Federal Election Commission) in 2010, a 5-4 decision that opened the floodgates to so called "dark money" by calling money speech and corporations people. Neither of which is true. Except to Republicans and their corporate masters.

 

Jim's brilliant idea (I rarely speak of myself in the 3rd person, but I'll make an exception here)? Simply put, the tens of millions of dollars in campaigns are all poured into the coffers of television stations and networks for those gawdawful, odious ads with which we in Georgia have been inundated day and night and will be through January 5th. And we can make that money useless.

 

My idea: every attack ad on television or radio, whether before or during a campaign season, which in any way mentions or can be construed to mention an incumbent in a federal office (President down to every member of House and Senate) or any announced candidate for any of those positions MUST first be previewed by the attacked candidate. Who is then permitted to record a response, double the length of the first ad, to air FREE OF CHARGE immediately following the first ad after EVERY SHOWING of the attack ad.

 

 Presto: attack ads are now rendered useless- actually, worse than useless, as the attackee can immediately refute the ad, plus gets free air time twice the amount of the attack ad.

 

Also, the artificial caps on rates for campaign ads will be removed. So the dark money nefarious demons will have to pay through the nose to air their lying attack ads. Here in Georgia Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff have been accused of everything under the sun except burning the flag and dancing on it- and I'm surprised the Perdue and Loeffler flying monkeys failed to put that out there. So far..

 

This one step alone- perfectly legal, as the Federal Government owns the air waves and merely licenses them to the stations which carry the networks (with cable this may be a bit more difficult, but I'm sure a workaround can be done using the Commerce Clause) should do the trick. And there is no infringement on the First Amendment rights of the attackers who are paying for their ads, so no court case can strike down the law.

 

Secondly: every donation to any person holding office or seeking federal office will be now be labeled as a bribe. I just watched a great episode of the first season of West Wing, season 1, episode 20, "Mandatory Minimums", which highlighted the awfulness of the campaign finance system, where one of the characters- Bradley Whitford, as Josh Lyman, says 'we've just legalized bribery!" Well, we can unlegalize it. And every request for money from an incumbent or a candidate will be a solicitation for a bribe.

 

Bingo: no more private financing of any campaigns. No more repulsive scenes of Senators and Congressman on the phone or at rubber chicken "private" dinners begging for money.

 

All campaigns  for federal office will be publically financed: each announced candidate who polls above a certain amount or collects enough signatures on a petition (which can be internet based to save money) will qualify for a certain amount of money to spend, depending on the office.

 

However, all campaign ads will run free of charge, which takes away the biggest part of campaign spending.

Again: the Federal government owns the airwaves.   There will be a limit on the number of ads, to avoid polluting the airwaves.   They will still have to pay to produce the ads, but the real expenses have come from the money they pay to air them.   Federal law already requires a certain amount of time and ads aired on Federally licensed stations (by the FCC) to be "in the public interest." Adding this to the telecommunications law is a no- brainer. Which to date, is the amount of brain power the Democrats have devoted to this problem.

 

Third: all PAC ads will have to disclose their backers- every major contributor, every corporation- and any person attacked will be permitted to tack any of that information onto the 30 seconds following the attack ad but before the free response. So that "dark money" will have to come out from under their rocks into the sunlight.

 

Once dark money is neutered and the campaign finance system is reformed to eliminate all bribes, then good legislation is possible.

 

Without reform, we are mired in the current mess where lobbyists might not be able to pass their dirty legislation (although under Bush and T***p they literally passed bills written by lobbyists for those industries affected by them), but they sure as hell can block good legislation. And they have. Under Democratic control as well- which is why Bill Clinton's universal health insurance failed in 1993.

 

One order of business will be gun control. No more assault rifle massacres by insane gunmen on elementary schools. Tough luck, NRA!

 

https://buildabettermousetrap.blogspot.com/2009/01/obama-wont-be-change-president-unless.html