I have been on record saying that we should increase the pay of the Representatives and Senators over the 7 figure threshold and severely limit lobbying money they can accept...that way they will be more accountable to us instead of corporations. And make it a felony (like accepting bribes) to accept lobbying money over whatever low limit is set...

My suggestion is always dismissed out of hand but I will continue to push it. I think it would attract a better class of people into public service also.

"Or is it something else?"

Like a Democratic party united behind a politician determined to foreground working Americans?

The federal government buys a sufficient amount of TV/radio time and newspaper space. It is shared equally by all listed congressional candidates in a district. Prevent private time purchase.

Argue that this does not infringe speech since it is unencumbered when using the legitimate channel. Content is not judged, and candidates can spend whatever they want on production of spots.

No way should Congresspersons make 7 figures. Consider their perks. 

Exactly the problem-the uninformed ignorant American voter. Libertine's idea of a million dollar salary for congressmen/senators is a fools plan, whatever they get paid it won't be enough to make them honest-they will want more, and more. Honesty only comes from scrutiny and a demand for it from the voters.

National Geographic's recent survey found 30% of 18-24 year old Americans couldn't find Louisiana on a unlabeled map of the US-my guess is 90% don't know much beyond their personal lives, their favorite TV shows, and the price of gas. This is a country headed for a economic crash unlike any seen since the 1970's (or worse) due to our lack a government that does it's job, billions wasted on war, and exploding foreign subsidized debts.

The Founders probably put that whole "freedom of the press" thing in there for a reason.

We can't have a democracy without a press that serves the public's interest, and somewhere along the way we lost that. So reforming our media, breaking it free from corporate interests, seems like a necessary first step.

Dissent Protects Democracy

I'd like to see all monies and goodies passing from lobbyists to lawmakers banned and campaign finance reform and all those good things -- I really would -- urgently! But I know that until our personal ethics change on a national scale, that while we still have a popular culture that rewards profit and gain with admiration and envy, nothing will change. What's wrong with universal healthcare? Duh! It means nobody gets more than anyone else. And that seems completely wrong to a lot of people. The same people who would, if they could, buy a legislator for their own purposes.

You know, why the hell don't I ever get surveyed?! I would blow their results out of the fucking water because I actually know where these places are and how they impact us. I think it really has to be sensationalist to some extent.

...Exactly the problem-the uninformed ignorant American voter.....my guess is 90% don't know much beyond their personal lives, their favorite TV shows, and the price of gas.....

You sound exactly like Mr. Jim Crow. Like the idea of poll testing? Goodwin, Schwerner and Chaney are rolling in their graves every time something like that is said on a site that supposedly is not anti-democratically oriented.

Lots of people in 3rd world countries are illiterate. I would presume you have something against them voting, that you aren't just elitist when Americans are concerned. Think lots of President Chavez's "base" can find Louisiana or Iraq or even Argentina on a map? Guess again.

You should really look into some form of totalitarianism, I'm sure it would suit you better, you wouldn't have to deal with all those pesky stupid uneducated people.

To top it all off, you used the word "voters." You didn't even limit the insult to people who chose not to vote because they don't feel informed enough to do so.

I haven't yet read Sirota's book, but I would not be surprised if the working hypothesis behind the problems he highlights was explained in one of Paul Krugman's most powerful articles, "Rat Democracy":

http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/ratdem.htm

The essential quote is as follows:

"...any practical politician comes to realize that betraying the public interest on small issues involves little political cost, because voters lack the individual incentive to notice."

And the reality, I think, is that we have reached a point where either (a) politicians have lost sight of what is a small or big issue; or (b) the cumulative effect of all the selling out has resulted in a system of government where a consideration of "the public interest" is, well, quaint.

As for the solution...I think there is one fairly obvious option to consider. My view is that as Americans, we tend to be quite aware of what is going on in our immediate communities, slightly informed about what's happening in our state, and pretty ignorant over what's happening at the federal level. So if we can reduce federal influence, and hand back as much as practicable to states, we will begin to align politics more closely with the reality of American life.

Or in Krugman-speak, we will facilitate a system that better mitigates the free-rider problem, by making it more likely that money in politics will be tracked.

This is no silver bullet (there isn't one - as Krugman implies, elimination of the free-rider problem is impossible) and I wouldn't for a moment expect DC politicians to give up their influence willingly. But we need to get a grip of the lobbying system, and I don't really see how tinkering with ethics and disclosure rules will have any serious long term impact if it doesn't make us, as a nation, more interested in following politics.

A decentralization of power, however, would seem over time more likely to achieve this.

It seems to me that a lot of what ails us is privilege -- that is, "private laws" or skewed laws or traditions, or loopholes -- which favors a lucky group at the expense of the basic rights and equality of everyone else.

The right to enslave other human beings was one form of privilege, and we let that happen for 80 or so years after we held it to be self-evident that we're all created equal.   (And it wasn't just in the south; New York City had a lot of it too -- check the historical society website if you doubt it.)

In the past 100 or so years, the right to spew pollution into our water and air without compensating everyone else for what is stolen from them is another form of privilege. (One could argue that when total pollution wasn't more than the ecosystem could process and handle, perhaps a charge was not in order, but we've passed that point and we're still allowing that pollution to take place. We think of it as just factory owners and the like, but each of us who drives a car is also given similar privileges, perhaps just to make us co-beneficiaries in some small way in order to silence us about the big polluters.  Similarly we get to keep the appreciation of our little bits of inexpensive land so that the owners of land that is tens, even hundreds, of thousands times more valuable can claim that they're only getting what we are getting!)

Pork and earmarks are a form of this. Every half-decently-executed infrastructure spending program has the same effect: it increases the land value of those landholders who own land in its surrounding area, usually by several times what the project actually cost. But do we collect that increase in land value back from them as our common entitlement, a return on OUR investment? No -- we allow them to privatize it. Were we to stop that privatization of the economic value of each of those spending projects, the demand for them would change. The bridge to Gravina Island? The local landholders would say no if the result was that they would be paying for it in the form of nationally-collected property taxes on the increase in value the bridge created. They'd actually have to put their land to good use in order to pay the tax! What a novel idea!

What the lobbyists lobby for are PRIVILEGES for their clients.

IF we can expose the kinds of privilege that are quietly built into our system, and correct them, we will go a long way toward solving these problems.

Simply taxing the increases in land value that the lobbyists' successes create will provide an excellent flow of revenue to support our public purposes, without taxing income or sales.

It may be that we could support the Social Security system -- what was the old expression? Living off the fat of the land?

We're all entitled to that fat. Not just the fat cats who get projects done which increase the value of their holdings.

Don't forget, too, that the natural creation which is currently allowed to be privatized includes those airwaves, which -- all together now! -- BELONG TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. But we've given them away, and we don't tax back any of that value, allowing one media company to sell each bit of bandwidth it has grabbed to another media company at a tremendous profit. (Getting a pushbutton on my radio is a dubious improvement they've added to its value; it lasts about 10 seconds after the format changes!) And every other year when election season rolls around, those media companies make tremendous bonus money over and above their normal profit off OUR airwaves. Collect that back. Make it real about the airwaves belonging to us.

Eschew privilege. Seek it out, point it out, name it, see who benefits from it, and let the sunshine purify it. Share that benefit among all of us, assuming you are one who believes we were all created equal.

At the same time, reward work fully, as long as it does not involve theft from the rest of us. Wages will rise. Hope will rise. Prosperity.

http://www.wealthandwant.com ... if you'd like to see an end to poverty

One very important issue is obviously campaign finance. Unfortunately, as I understand it (and I'm not an expert), a major problem here is that courts disallow needed reforms in the name of free speech. So this is really just another problem without an obvious solution. BTW, I completely disagree with the proposals to dramatically hike the salaries of elected officials as part of a "plan" to address campaign finance/ lobbying.

What about the possibility that corporate interests themselves might adopt more socially responsible attitudes? Ultimately, I don't think its possible for elected officials alone to create a fair/ just society. This has to be a shared effort, and I don't believe its possible to have a true democracy when the corporate world acts in a systematically selfish and short-sighted manner. May sound idealistic. However, it wasn't too long ago that business interests actually attempted to serve the public good as opposed to simply maximizing "shareholder value".

Such a change in attitude can't be enforced by any sort of govt dictate, but probably has to emerge organically from the business world itself as a result of principled leaders that feel some obligation toward contributing to the greater good.

What's post- or non-ideological about being either for or against government by and for the moneyed interests? That's the most basic ideological divide there is.

The GOP's always been the party of the moneyed interests. Ideology can only go away when the Dems cave and join them in propping up those interests.

The reason why it seems we have such an ideological divide right now is that the Dems have mostly caved, but we're still out here, making a lot of noise. So by comparison we look 'shrill,' and the gap looks bigger because it's much wider than the gap between the two parties.

In reality, of course, we're just asking the Dems to stand up and be for the things that Dems have always claimed to be for. OTOH, the GOP is much more open in its espousal of corporate and fat-cat interests than at any time in the past 50 years.

Unfortunately, as I understand it (and I'm not an expert), a major problem here is that courts disallow needed reforms in the name of free speech. So this is really just another problem without an obvious solution.

Got one for you: give each adult citizen a PayPal-style account for Federal campaigns, and have the government put maybe $100 in it, in each 2-year cycle. Each person can decide how they're going to divvy up their $100 among different candidates in different races, and whether to spend it early or late, in primaries or general elections, in state or out of state, for major-party or third-party candidates, whatever.

No free-speech problem at all, and up to $20 billion of additional money into the system, from the people rather than the corporations.

This would have the very important additional benefit (hell, practically the main point) of engaging, involving, and empowering the voters. (And a more alert and engaged electorate should be seen as our #1 long-term goal.) Rather than some bureaucracy doling out the public financing, we'd all get to play our part. Probably even get a lot of conversations going, along the lines of fantasy-league conversations - instead of "who're you going to draft?", it would be "how are you going to break up your $100?"

Deleted comment here; posted it on wrong thread. Sorry.