Monday, March 23, 2009

Stop the Money Chase




Stop the Money Chase

Instead of drafting legislation that will regulate Wall Street Congress is feigning indignation over 165 million dollars given in bonuses to the AIG employees.

This is an amount that is almost insignificant compared to 170 Billion dollars congress gave with no strings attached. I did the math and the 165 million in bonuses amounts to less than one tenth of one percent of that 170 billion.

All this began because many of the politicians, who appear so outraged, helped to deregulate Wall Street and did so because they were chasing campaign funds from the lobbyists who represent Wall Street.

The most important thing that we can do at this time is to support campaign finance reform. I am asking everyone to support a legislation that is to be introduced later this week by Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) called the Fair Elections Now Act. Fair Elections is a bi-partisan reform that will free our lawmakers from the never-ending fundraising treadmill and allow them to concentrate on the critical issues of the day.

Under Fair Elections, candidates would qualify for limited public money by raising a specific number of small donations from their community, and would receive additional funds to match their ongoing small contributions. They would be prohibited from taking any large contributions.

Get involved and get your friends involved help pass the Fair Elections Now Act. Congress needs to hear from we the people so that they know that we are tired of the money chase and we are not going to take it any more.

Here is an organization that is dedicated to this cause I encourage you to sign up for their email alerts on this issue.
http://www.publicampaign.org/

Here is the letter I am writing and feel free to use it or alter it and send it to your congressman ASAP.

Congressman Young

I strongly urge you to support the bi-partisan reform bill to be introduced later this week by Senators Dick Durbin and Arlen Specter called the Fair Elections Now Act.

Fair elections are about voters and not big campaign donors. This legislation is modeled after the successful clean elections laws in seven states and two cities. Candidates need to be able to seek public office without having to court big money special interests for campaign contributions

We need our lawmakers accountable to the only to the citizens and free from the never-ending fundraising treadmill so that they can concentrate on the critical issues of the day.

Sincerely
Michael Chavers

You can find your representative here.
http://www.house.gov/

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As always, Mike, an excellent post.

I'll be back more often....