Our Horribly Broken Election Process, Part 3 - The Second Half Of A Solution

We have never been big fans of any American politician in this blog. We find them either cowardly, stupid, or greedy and often criminals. The list of their transgressions in each of these categories probably numbers in the hundreds when you go back through our previous posts.

Probably their worst trait of all is that they rig the system to make themselves rich, comfortable, and often above the law. They give themselves high pay and great benefits. They are in session in Congress for less than half the year. They are given multi-week vacations that they try to call “recesses.” They find ways to do insider trading on stocks and companies based on non-public information relative to potential and real legislation. And they spend so much time doing this stuff for themselves that they never get around to resolving the major issues facing the American public.

Several days ago we did a post on one particularly egregious abuse of the system by politicians:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/07/washington-corruption-train-keeps-on.html

Today, we are proposing a second set of basic changes that need to be made to our political processes that hopefully will get people in office that want to focus on resolving the big issues facing Americans today rather than have the existing types of politicians continue to remain in office where their only focus is self enrichment. The first set of changes can be accessed at:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/03/our-horribly-broken-election-process.html

1) The Federal Election Commission is supposed to ensure that everyone complies with existing election laws. It is in reality a farce that serves as a facade to legitimate election practices but really is nothing more than an exercise in doing nothing. It is staffed by an equal number of Republican and Democratic political hacks so that if anyone on the FEC actually wanted to prosecute someone for violating election laws it would never have the majority of votes needed to proceed. 

Think about it: when was the last time you heard of the FEC successfully going after someone who violated election laws? Because you know for sure, given the lack of integrity and ethics within the current political class, these people are not morally or criminally pure.

Rather than appointing do nothing political yes men and women to the FEC, it needs to be staffed with experienced criminal prosecutors so that justice supersedes the political needs and wishes of those in office and in charge. Only then, when politics are taken out of the FEC staffing, will election laws actually mean something.

2) For Presidential debates, every candidate that has a mathematical chance of winning the Electoral College should be included in the debates. As we have often said, while there may be two political parties in this country, there is only one political class. While that political class has two wings, Democrats and Republicans, their aims are always the same: maintain power and continually stay in office to continually enrich themselves. Their different political stances are more marketing ploys than solutions. 

Thus, in the last Presidential election, the Libertarian Party and Green Party candidates should have been included in the debates. Not only would that provide a fresh dimension to the debates, it would have forced Trump and Clinton to actually present solutions to issues rather than just attack each other to satisfy their bases. The Greens and Libertarians would have brought real solutions to the table and who know, actually caused some voters to finally vote for someone outside of the current and ineffective political class caste.

3) If you live in Kansas and are a Democrat, your Presidential vote usually means nothing since the state overwhelmingly usually votes Republican. That means ALL of the Electoral College votes in that state become Republican, all citizen Democrat votes in that state become meaningless.

If you are a Republican in California, your Presidential vote usually means nothing since the state overwhelmingly votes Democrat. That means ALL of the Electoral College votes in that state become Democrat, all citizen Republican votes in that state become meaningless.

Thus, the solution becomes, and it is a solution that already exists in a handful of states, is that Electoral Votes in a state be somehow based on the number of votes for each Presidential candidate in that state. For example, if 35% of the voters in California voted for a Republican candidate, than 35% of the Electoral Votes in what state should be assigned to the Republican candidate. Similarly, in Kansas, if 35% of the votes were for the Democratic candidate, than 35% of the Electoral Votes in that state should be assigned to the Democratic candidate.

What happens now is that there really is no reason for a Democrat in Kansas or a Republican in California to vote for President. Their votes, under the current process, have no chance of making any difference. In addition, the candidates know that. Thus, a Democrat is rarely going to put any effort into the voters in Kansas since the payoff is likely nil. A Republican is rarely going to put any effort into the voters in California since the payoff is likely nil. 

Apportion Electoral votes on the percentage of voters who voted for each candidate in each state and no voter will be disenfranchised like they are now.

4) Most American workers are paid on some type of merit system. If an individual or their team or their company does better, that worker is usually rewarded. If they perform worse, than the rewards are less or non-existent. Only in Congress and the office of the President can you be a complete screw up and still get high salaries, rich benefits, and a slew of other benefits.

This has to end since if you have no skin in the game, i.e. as a politician you get rich regardless of how little you accomplish, then you tend to not focus on getting anything substantial accomplished. Thus, we need to implement an annual customer/voter satisfaction survey process that determines whether or not Washington politicians get highly rewarded for accomplishment or get punished with low rewards for being total screw ups. 

Besides determining whether or not survey voters, selected at random, think Congress and the President actually accomplished anything worthwhile, part of the survey would also be to measure and reward based on how civil and cooperative they were with each other. Given the poisonous atmosphere in Washington today it is not a surprise that nothing gets accomplished, given all of the name calling, slandering, and backstabbing. Make cooperation a major part of the pay determination and maybe, just maybe these people can start cooperating with each other rather than backstabbing each other to the country's detriment.

5) Once Presidents leave office , they now become multi millionaires, it is a fact of life. And yet, even though they get richer and richer, the American taxpayer must continue to pay for their security and pension and benefits even though they could easily pick all of those expenses from their personal wealth. Thus, as outlined in our book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” once an ex-President's income or wealth exceeded a certain threshold, they would become responsible for their own security and retirement expenses, not the taxpayers.

While these government expenses savings would not do a lot of offset the Federal government’s $20 TRILLION national debt, it would be a nice symbolic and leadership effort to show that the American taxpayer does not have to pay for the expenses of an increasingly royalty class of wealthy ex-Presidents.

That will wrap up our second set of simple changes that would make our democracy more viable, our government more cost effective and most of all, our politicians more accountable to the people and not their personal enrichment. Today’s American politicians are an embarrassment to the country, our democracy, and the hard working Americans who make their luxurious lifestyles possible. It has to end.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

\