You know the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee is packed with Republican science denialists, right? We ought to be embarrassed to be a technological society with government oversight provided by a gang of corrupt, miseducated yahoos who promote policy based on lies. The chair of that committee, Lamar Smith, is chummy with the Heartland Institute, that right-wing think-tank rich people use to promote anti-environmental propaganda.
That makes this story particularly interesting: while denying climate change and aiding the fossil fuel industry, Lamar Smith is himself filthy rich from oil extracted from his Texas “ranch”.
From 1986 until 2016, Smith made at least $2.4 million and as much as $11.1 million through business dealings affiliated with the ranch. Members of Congress report their income in ranges and bundle the types of income they receive. That practice makes it difficult to track sources of payment, business arrangements and specific dollar amounts in receipts.
Hey, I have an idea.
Let’s prohibit the rich from holding high political office. Put a cap on it: you can’t run for a political office if your household income is higher than, say, five times the American median household income. That’s around $60K, so if you’re making more than $300K, you don’t get to run. You don’t get to simultaneously hold political power and economic power. That’s a separation of powers for an egalitarian state I could get behind.
It’s not a flawless suggestion. I can guess already that some might put their money in a temporary trust while they’re in office, so while they’re actually rich in reality, they’re not on paper. The Koch brothers wouldn’t be stopped from their practice of buying up proxy goons (<cough>Scott Walker) to do their dirty work for them. But really, don’t you think every decision Lamar Smith made in Congress was tainted by his financial ties?
Also, since our country was founded by a mob of Rich White Guys with a constitution full of compromises to help Rich White Guys, I can imagine that such a proposal would be considered unconstitutional for religious reasons, our worship of the Founding Fathers.
But really, don’t you think every decision Lamar Smith made in Congress was tainted by his financial ties?
Certainly not. How dare you impune the morality of a distinguished American politician.
He decided on how he wanted his coffee, with or without sugar. He was not a pawn of the Koch conglomerate. So there!
The amazing thing from published figures is how cheap a US senator or Representative is.
“You don’t get to simultaneously hold political power and economic power”
Plato got there first!
I’ve often thought that government should use the same technique as jury service—random(ish) selection.
That way government would be filled with average (again -ish) numbers of the honest and informed and intelligent and public-spirited, and of course also of the criminal and ignorant and dumb and selfish: this would be a great improvement on the current system which is so heavily weighted towards the last four.
The proposal of an income limit for political leaders echoes such a proposal made last month by a Democratic candidate for President in 2020, Richard Ojeda of West Virginia. He ran for Congress this year, and he did better than any other Democrat in the country, in terms of persuading voters who had voted for Trump to vote for him. Unfortunately, in his district, the Republicans had a 37% lead, so he didn’t win. But the leadership to shift the electorate blue by about 25% is incredible. People can read more about his proposal, including post-presidency income limitations, and why these are important, by finding his web site, which I think Ojeda should not be hard to Google.
jrkrideau@#1:
The amazing thing from published figures is how cheap a US senator or Representative is.
“The interesting thing about ABSCAM is not that it taught us that US senators are for sale, but that you or I can afford one.” – Robert T. Morris, Sr.
@ 5 Marcus
Well, I might have to start a “FundMe” campaign but at least one senator should be available by next year. With a bit of publicity we might be able to get most of the House.
Does anyone know if there is a premium on senators versus representatives?
I am a little curious, what other rights should we strip from the wealthy, for no other reason than their wealth? Maybe their right to vote? Their freedom of religion or to be free of religion? Their freedom of speech?
At what level of wealth do we turn them into outlaws?
Because, that is precisely what you did, remove a right over the defect of possessing too much money.
Because, that is precisely what you did, remove a right over the defect of possessing too much money.
So? If you want pubic office you can give the money away. Being wealthy is not a genetic disease.
to remain a functioning democracy we have decided on a mostly secret ballot, that seems like a good idea whose purpose is to protect the voter from undue influence and coercion.
all politicians in our democratic systems are representatives of the people who are elected to carry out the will of the people, in the job of making the laws in the legislative branches or enforcing them in the executive branch at no point are they authorized to do that in secret. They do not vote in secret nor enforce the laws in secret.
In practice they run for office doing their best to keep some of the things they have done or even who they are and what they think secret spouting pious platitudes and patriotic generalization. Keeping “private” much of their personal lives, the business connections and many of their major political financial contributors. Why is that allowed to continue? Any financial declarations are usually made too late and too quietly to make much of a deference. To run for public office to volunteer to do the public’s bidding it would seem proper or preferable to do it in the open for all to see instead of allowing this stealth candidacy to continue, What we have too many times are liars and cheats, people who say one thing on election day and do something else, people who are expert in obfuscation
to run for office you must be yourself in public full disclosure with penalties for none-disclosure. your money and income your history and beliefs relationships education the works how else are the voters going to know that you will do what you say you will do, the fucking job you are asking for?
money is a detail it is the secrecy, the lies that are the problem,
uncle frogy
Why don’t we just prohibit the rich instead?
Ruling us is a privilege, not a right.
“ve often thought that government should use the same technique as jury service—random(ish) selection.”
That’s called sortition, and I think it’s a great idea. Not so much for making laws, but certainly for reviewing them. Have a house of review picked through sortition and give it the power to strike down laws but not make new ones. Maybe take the President’s veto away to compensate. Turn it over frequently, maybe one year non-repeating terms, so they don’t get captured by the system.
“You don’t get to simultaneously hold political power and economic power. ”
I think that’s a reasonable principle, but doesn’t it also mean that you can’t have anything more than lasseiz-faire economic policy? Any kind of government economic planning is combining political and economic power, after all.
My take has always been: let the rich run. But upon gaining office:
– they are never allowed another job
– rules against getting gifts remains in effect for their lives
– they get to keep their congressional pay for the rest of their lives too.
Pay should be targeted at something like 3x the median income of their constituents. Nice, comfortable – rich to most of us, but completely beneath those of the upper class.
The obvious flaw with “blind trusts” to make oneself look penniless while in office, is all the money could be dumped into a few select stocks in major corporations, then in office do everything possible to make the value of those stocks skyrocket.
Ideally, as impractical as I can think of, is to allow candidates only within 1 sigma of the normal distribution of several factors:
(1) wealth
(2) education
(3) something
you know what I mean, someone who is more representative of the common person by being atually from that segment of the population.
I suppose democracy puts that on us in selecting who we vote for and can’t be set into formal qualifications. oh no.
thank you letting me ramble
Give em a wicked pension, then never allow them to work again. Only approved charities that meet very strict criteria to and the smallest irregularity means a full blown audit. Also if anyone in your family or friend groups mysteriously come into a bunch of cash, audit. No gifts of any kind.
Whoops, didn’t see 13.
To OP: I like this idea, actually. I’ve been throwing it around in my head for a while. To prevent lobbying, I think we would need to say that they must subsist off a government stipend for the rest of their life too, being barred from receiving any sort of outside income, gifts, etc.
…
PS:
You know the old joke that says “We’re not discriminating against poor people by passing a law that makes it illegal to sleep under bridges. It’s illegal for rich and poor alike!”. Similarly, we’re not talking about passing a law / a constitutional amendment that says rich people are unable to run for public office. Rich people are free to give away their money to others in order to qualify for the requirements, just like any poor person can give away what meager assets that they have too!
Sorry for multiposting, but I really must echo agreement what someone up-thread said:
“Ruling us is a privilege, not a right.”
I cannot agree more (although I would probably want to add some obvious qualifiers and explanation on it, were I to try to do wider publication).
pardon me here but I thought the point of democracy was to be “ruled” by ourselves and in this representative democracy we use elections to decided who will do what we the citizens want.
the elected officials are in no way rulers
how did Abe say it of the people by the people and for the people.
no where is there any mention of any ruling or ruler and certainly no king or dear leader or supreme leader either
uncle frogy
To unclefrogy
Of course, you’re right. I’m pretty sure that it was just an unfortunate choice of phrasing on Azkyroth’s part. I interpreted Azkyroth to mean the proper “elected representative” meaning instead of a “rule by king” sort of meaning. (That’s part of what I meant by saying that I would have to clean it up if I wanted wider publication.)