MORE THAN 90% OF CONGRESSIONAL “INCOME”
COMES FROM CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTORS
To the best of my knowledge and belief (I will welcome any statistics to refute, help clarify, or strengthen and support that statement), America has reached a point where more than 90% of the income received by most Congressmen and Senators comes from campaign contributors, rather than in the form of salaries paid to them by the taxpayers who elected them. So, take a running guess at where their true loyalties are.
I would encourage anyone, when discussing politics and politicians, to use the simple, logical, direct, straight-forward definition of “income”. It is, quite simply, money that comes in, as distinct from money that must be paid out. “Comes in” means that the money arrives in a way which puts it under the ownership and control of a politician.
I realize most politicians do NOT like that definition, because it makes them look bad. They would much rather limit what they call “income” to a much smaller (and much more modest, and humble-looking) amount, while claiming and pretending that “campaign contributions” are in some totally different category, which goes to some other entity, such as a “campaign committee”. It’s easy to understand why they prefer to use that self-serving name-swap. However, if a politician controls his campaign committee, and fully intends to use any money his campaign committee receives, for the sole purpose of helping him stay in office, and cling to power, then any attempt to pretend or claim that it is not “income” becomes an arbitrary and artificial distinction, which is NOT being used to inform or educate, but to mislead, and to create evasions, excuses, side-steps, and smoke-screens.
So, I will simply point, again, to a more logical, direct, reasonable, accurate, and straight-forward definition: “income” is money which comes in, rather than goes out. If any other type of person receives a payment from someone, either in cash or via check, it will make NO substantive difference whether he puts it into a savings account, or a checking account, if in fact he owns and controls any money in each and both of those two accounts. What matters is ownership, control, and the ability to decide and control how much money gets paid out, and to whom, and when, regardless of which account was used to hold that money until it was paid out. We should apply that same type of logical and realistic standard to politicians; but, we don’t. The fact that they have passed laws which serve their interests, and help them get re-elected, by concealing and obscuring important facts that voters should know when they choose who to vote for, is yet another indicator of the basic problem, which is that the people in Congress have come to regard themselves as our leaders and commanders, rather than as public servants whose job is to serve the public interests, and public needs.
So . . . somehow or another, we have reached a point where, in the majority of races, the campaign expenses – for the winning candidate – are more than ten-fold higher than the official `salary’ that will be paid to that person, out of taxpayer funds, during the single term in office that is at stake during some particular election. The straight-forward numbers will show that:
(1) voters and taxpayers end up paying LESS THAN 10% of the “income” that a (typical) politician needs, to get re-elected, and to keep clinging to power; while,
(2) campaign contributors pay MORE THAN 90% of the “income” a politician needs, to stay in power.
If that is indeed the fact, then it should not surprise anyone to learn that the most powerful, persuasive, and intense pressure on any elected official, will come, NOT from the voters who provide less than 10% of his/her income, but from the campaign contributors who provide more than 90% of his/her income. The American political system reached that point, turned that corner, and began traveling in that direction, decades ago, and, it should not surprise anyone that the $34 TRILLION NATIONAL DEBT that our country is now struggling with (and cannot pay down), began to pile up at unsustainable rates at – golly, what a coincidence!!! – just about the same time that politicians realized they had to work for, represent, and ultimately obey their campaign contributors, rather than the taxpayers and voters they only claim and pretend to represent, and work for.
As a result, if and when a politician is faced with a situation that requires him to choose one group over the other, then, the most common response – by nearly any politician – will be:
(i) working and plotting with his staffers, advisors, and speech-writer(s), to create flowery, elaborate, oh-so-clever speeches, offering up some thread of logic which pretends that the politician is indeed serving the voters’ best interests, over the long run; while, nevertheless,
(ii) quietly doing whatever his campaign contributors demand, in exchange for their life-sustaining, power-sustaining financial support.
So . . . the goal stated above can be rephrased as follows:
“How can middle-class voters, citizens, taxpayers, and workers – the true heart and strength of America –
create and use better ways to pressure and force politicians to begin actually working for them –
for the middle class – instead of merely claiming and pretending to do so,
while actually doing whatever their campaign contributors demand?”
Our first draft of an effort to describe a serious, practical, step-by-step approach to tackling that problem, is in the `Methods" section of this website. You can jump to it, by clicking on the button below; however, we would invite you to read the next 2 pages, before you go there, because they contain additional information which we believe can help provide two more good and useful planks, to the platform we hope to use to support the methods proposed herein.