The multitude of crises our country is suffering all point to one basic failing of our government, that is a lack of accountability of our elected representatives.  It is clear that they feel that they are adequately isolated from the anger of the electorate while they hold office and that they can engage in grotesque abuses of their offices.  If they are in the end voted out of office, they simply take up a holding pattern within the patron industry they are beholden to.  Karl Rove for instance feels that he is immune to congressional subpoena, and not without reason.  If one of us, the electorate, were to be so brazen it is certain that we would be held accountable. 

Thus, I propose the following:  Let us have a 'Public Official Accountability Act of 2009.  This act should carry increased penalties for those who abuse the public trust, say a 10 fold increase in the penalty normally rendered for breaking any given law.  So if you are a cop, and you murder a young man in a subway station and you are found guilty by a jury of the electorate, the judge should be obligated to pass a sentence 10 times as harsh for your abuse of power,  I realize that this contravenes the long held principle of immunity of public office holders for the consequences of official acts, but then again I remember a day when the United States of America did not officially sanction the torture of prisoners etc.  So in the spirit of the new age of expediency we live in let us all be accountable.  Call it a tax on avarice.