UNICAMERAL

UNICAMERAL

“Government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob.”  - FDR

“Sadly, the arrogance of the imperial executive has too often been reinforced by the cowardice of the Congress.”  - Katrina vanden Heuvel

“Our nation is facing a crisis of liberty if we do not control campaign expenditures. We must prove that elective office is not for sale. We must convince the public that elected officials are what James Madison intended us to be, agents of the sovereign people, not the hired hands of rich givers….”  - Senator Barry Goldwater

By J.M. Hamilton  9-21-2014

Bellevue, Nebraska - Circa 1970s.  Time flies.  Spending some of my formative years in Bellevue, just south of Omaha, was instructional to say the least.  Four key things I learned my fourth grade year, were:  1) Don’t mess with Mrs. Struckman, my fourth grade teacher.  I once saw Mrs. Struckman wrap half a roll of masking tape around the class cut-up’s head, just to get the kid to shut up in class.  The class clown had shoulder length hair, as was the norm in the seventies.  Remember this was Pre-Ritalin/Pre-Aderall.  Mrs. Struckman, ever the humanitarian, left the tape off Jerome’s nostrils so that he could still breath.  Two hours later when Mrs. Struckman asked the class a question, Jerome timidly raised his hand.  Mrs. Struckman moved in closer to hear his muffled response, through about a quarter inch of tape.   “I can still hear you,” she said, and proceeded to finish off the rest of the roll of tape, wrapping it around Jerome’s head.  So never, and I mean never, mess with the fiery red head, The Struckman.  2) Nebraska winters, and summers, are incredibly harsh.  Blizzards with eight foot snowdrifts… been there, seen that.  Summer days blending into weeks, with extreme humidity and temps running into the century mark.  Not uncommon.  3) Bellevue was home to the Strategic Air Command, where a general was said to be flying  overhead at all times with his finger on The Button, in case command and control failed on the ground, and the Ruskies attacked.  The general in the sky was just playing his part in the MAD doctrine (or Mutual Assured Destruction).  The cold war was very much in play.  4) Nebraska was the only state in the country that had a unicameral government, that is one legislative house (instead of two houses). 

Some of the benefits of a unicameral government are obvious:  fewer gangsters running for higher office; less government expense for the taxpayer to shoulder; greater productivity, less gridlock, and less internecine conflict; and Nebraska’s legislature is said to be “non-partisan.”

Now compare the “pros” of a unicameral legislative body to the mess we currently have presiding in Washington, with a House and a Senate.  Congress’ approval rating is in the single digits.  For the first time, polls show that not only are the American people upset with Congress, but a majority of Americans feel that their own Congress-person is a part of the problem (usually Americans think everyone elses Congress-person is the problem).  And it’s not hard to figure out why. 

These jerks campaign 24/7, thanks to SCOTUS’ Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions, and obviously, they care only about themselves and their careers.  All too often, it takes a complete narcissist, and an opportunist, to run for higher office at the Federal and State level; but as the American people have come to realize, the attributes that make a great candidate for public office, often make for terrible leaders and worse public servants.  Many members simply use Congress as a steppingstone, or a rung on the ladder, to far more lucrative careers in the private sector (the revolving door in action).  To be sure, there are a very small minority of Reps and Senators who do a great job, but they are all too few.  Through gross mismanagement, lack of imagination and intelligence, fiscal and monetary incompetence, and negligence and apathy, these malefactors have run this country into the ground.  But don’t take my word for it.  Let’s examine the facts:

1)  Government spending as a percent of GDP is at or near 35 to 40% per annum…. So much for the land of capitalism;

2)  Our national debt to GDP ratio, has penetrated the century mark.  And the scary part, this figure doesn’t even begin to cover the underfunded future liabilities, from Medicare and social security, and the hangover from two decade long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

3)  Since the 1960s, U.S. citizens have been scared into three major wars – with dubious information and lies  - that metastasized into nation building exercises, costing the American taxpayer trillions.  And just this week, the degenerates passed approval for yet another war in Iraq/Syria, that is guaranteed once again to be lengthy, prolonged, and produce a questionable outcome (that’s right, no clear cut goals or mission, no exit strategy, just endless war).  Moreover, this latest war effort will manufacture – almost assuredly – hundreds of thousands of future terrorists and jihadists.  One of the key reasons the U.S. is going back to Iraq, besides defending Big Oil’s interests: The U.S. will likely spend billions blowing up billions of dollars of U.S. military equipment to keep it out of the hands of ISIS.  Blowback on top of blowback!  And the true problems in the Middle-East, the oil rich monarchies, who spread fundamentalist religion and finance terror, get a free pass.

4)  Meanwhile, America’s infrastructure is crumbling, and one in four U.S. children are born into poverty.  Seemingly the U.S. has money to protect Big Oil and multinational interests in Iraq; but when it come to our own citizens, Congress continually sells this country short.

5)  Due to Congress’s failure to take responsibility for revenue and expenditures, The Federal Reserve is the only thing keeping this house of cards afloat.  The Fed has printed several trillion dollars, since the financial crisis, to keep the banks from failing, and the mirage of limitless government entitlements and unsustainable national debt perpetuated.

6)  The biggest welfare class, of course, are the Wall Street banks, the plutocracy, cartels, monopolies, the MIC, and multinational interests.  Whether it’s government contracts handed out with little or no competition, a bloated MIC ever ready to defend corporate interests overseas, or tax breaks and a tax code that resembles Swiss cheese, the biggest winners are those who least need welfare, the uber wealthy; the biggest losers are the poor and the little that remains of the middle class.

7)  Of course, the Congress has their hands out, and takes in seemingly limitless sums of money and perks from any member of the plutocracy, foreign governments, and multinationals willing to pay or play.  That many U.S. based multinationals and foreign governments, who pay off our Congress, work at cross-purposes with the interests of the American people is not in dispute.  Take Exxon, by way of example.  Many Americans will tell you that Exxon is a great American company.  But Exxon’s own executive, when asked why not build more refineries in America to keep the price of fuel lower – hence stimulating our economy - will confirm the opposite.  Exxon Mobil chairman Lee Raymond replied to the request of more refineries with, “Why would I do that? I’m not a U.S. company, and I don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the U.S.”  And recently, Exxon has become so big that like any nation state, it now has its own foreign policy.  Exxon provides technological prowess and services to Russian dictator Putin, despite orders from the U.S. government to cease and desist.  It’s not even a remote stretch to make the case that Exxon has aided and abetted Russia’s criminal moves in the Ukraine and Crimea. 

8)  Simultaneously, many in Congress pander to the voters by decrying the amount of money in politics but then promptly vote against campaign finance reform, a measure that would undue Citizens United and McCutcheon.  While others in Congress are so bold as to suggest that corporations, even those with sociopathic and anti-social tendencies, are people too, are above the law, and should be allowed to spend unlimited sums of money buying off the Congress.  Which goes to show money isn’t the root of all evil, Congress is.

9)  Congress in the last several decades has presided over the near elimination of the middle-class, the off shoring of labor, record leveraged buyout and M&A activity - metastasized into cartels and monopolies, and now corporate inversions, where corporations – who exploit the tax code, often paying little or no taxes – relocate offshore (in effect, renouncing American citizenship).  Meanwhile, the national debt climbs ever higher, America crumbles, and the rich grow ever richer, while the poor and the middle-class are eviscerated.  And the Congress…. Well calling these individuals prostitutes, would be an insult to the world’s oldest profession.  Congress ducks, hides, plays politics, obstructs, and generally, can be counted on to make matters continually, worse.

And it’s not just in America…. Throughout Europe and wherever Western democracy is “practiced,” nationalist movements are on the march, politics is becoming more polarized, fascism and communism have returned, and the distribution of wealth and income has become more bipolar.  It seems that when the Soviet Union collapsed, Western democracies lost all source of competition, as did capitalism.   So democracy, capitalism and our elites, like all unchallenged monopolies, grew complacent, entitled, and privileged.  Who dares question democracy and capitalism?  Right?

Apparently, millions of citizens around the globe aren’t questioning democracy and capitalism so much, as their worst bastard progeny: crony capitalism, crony democracy sold to the highest bidder, and monopolies, cartels, and multinational institutions.  

As we witnessed in Merry Ol’ England this week, the elite are growing increasingly nervous (look no further than the global spy network, the NSA).  Promising Scotland greater autonomy and greater self-government, if they’ll only stay in the U.K.  Cowed by the fear card, all too often exploited by the political elite, the majority of Scots decided to stay.  Scotland however, very well may be a wake up call to crony democracy and the U.S. political elite.  Clean up your act Congress, or your likely see calls for secession in these United States.  Certainly some U.S. corporations are voting with their feet, and fleeing offshore.

There is, of course, a less dramatic and drastic way to take care of the Gordian Knot Congress represents, called political reform (because simply throwing the bums out, just means they’ll be replaced by more bums).  Ideally, a political reform wish list might look like the following:

1)  Term limits for all public servants (State and Federal), especially judges, capped at eight years of service, period;

2)  Stop the revolving door…  if you serve on the House Financial Services committee, than you’ve precluded yourself from joining a financial firm for a decade;

3)  Congress must adhere to all the laws that they pass;

4)  A cap on political spending per campaign of a million dollars, with any money taken on in excess of that figure given to legitimate charities, immediately.

5)  All public officials are subject to annual audit by the IRS without exception, a complete financial exam of proctological proportions.

6)  Regardless of office, limits on the time spent campaigning and raising money, capped at three months.

7)  Abolish the gerrymandered House of Representatives and go to a unicameral Senate body, with the 150 Senators being apportioned by U.S. population, and subject to state wide or regional elections (this means some states maybe too small to have a Senator, and some Senators may end up representing more than one state, while more populated states might have more than two Senators.)  A unicameral legislative body would be a favorite for fiscal conservatives and libertarians, who favor government cost controls and limited government; and liberals should like unicameral government, since it eliminates the House of Representatives that in its present incarnation, exists via rigged districts.

8)  Adopt a flat tax that is adjustable according to federal and state expenditures.  As for business, if you sell in America (whether your address is domestic or foreign), you pay taxes in America, as a percentage of gross receipts, period.

9)  End the spoils system of government.  A non-partisan group, should award all government contracts and apolitical government positions, based upon merit, ability, and with a nod to some cultural and socio-economic factors.

10)               Send F-16s and drones in to strafe K-Street, all lobbying effectively ended.

11)                 No wars - unless the sacrifice is shared by all citizens, through an immediate tax increase (wars should not be financed), and with a national draft.  That’ll put a stop to the nonsense and foreign adventures, posthaste.

Ah, and last but not least…. where’s Mrs. Struckman when you need her, to apply to tape to the mouths of the rabble that make up our current Congress?

Don't count on any reforms, or Amendments to the Constitution happening any time soon.  Congress and the plutocracy know they have a good thing going, and it will take something very serious in this country for Congress to change its course and embrace reform.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2014