Health Care Reform debacle shows need for Democrats to take ''anti-corruption'' pledge

[yurbud]

The president, vice president, and senators should be be asked to pledge that they will not, for the rest of their lives, serve as corporate or financial institution lobbyist, corporate officers, or board members, or accept any gifts or honorariums of any kind. If they need to travel somewhere, they should either feel it's justifiable to travel on the taxpayers' dime or not go. They get a very generous pension when they leave office. That should be enough.

Since Congressmen theoretically could serve shorter terms and turn over more often, their lobbying and job ban should be equal to the amount of time they serve in Congress since the more seniority they have, the more power they have and likelihood of being targeted for recruitment after they serve.

Sometimes the right decision for an elected official will look like it favors corporate America, but knowing our elected officials aren't influenced by future graft or jobs is the only way we can be sure that the decision is based on the interests of average Americans not just securing a donation or future job is to weld that door shut.

Obviously, this would only work in conjunction with campaign finance reform like public financing of elections, but others have done a better job of describing that.

This would have a side benefit of putting the GOP in an uncomfortable position since it would make them look as corrupt as they really are, and if they tried to match the pledge, they would have difficulty recruiting ANY candidates since ALL republicans see public office as the pursuit of private profits by other means.

When the Democratic Congress passed very mild ethics reform that required a cooling off period before legislators could work as lobbyists, Sen. Trent Lott resigned before it took effect so he would still be able to cash in.

If we had been requiring this of our candidates and elected Democrats a few years ago, we wouldn't be having the difficulty we are getting real health care reform instead of a gift to the insurance industry.

We should be asking our elected reps this question now, and all our candidates in the future.

[SIMPLYB1980]

1. That is a bad idea. Also it will never happen.

But have fun fighting futile fights.

[yurbud]

3. do you have some particular argument against it?

or do you think government exists solely to serve the already wealthy?

[SIMPLYB1980]

6. I just don't care if someone takes corporate money

as long as they vote the way I want. If they don't I will vote for someone else.

[yurbud]

8. you haven't noticed a pretty high correlation between taking their money and following their orders?

[SIMPLYB1980]

9. Not really most politicians do what is convenient at the time.

Weather or not they take money from a corporation. Many will just tell their corporate sponsors they had no choice in order to be re-elected. The game goes both ways.

[yurbud]

14. their arms are only twisted by voters on a handful of high profile issues

and even then, politicians do the minimal amount possible to placate us and avoid angering their sponsors.

[yurbud]

16. that's either wishful thinking or spinning

[anonymous171]

2. We should ask our elected reps to pass medicare for all. That would be much more effective.

Institutional changes only go so far. Americans need to engage in politics.

[yurbud]

4. how do you get them to do that? Clearly, a flood of emails and phone calls isn't enough.

We need to change the kind of people we get in office before they will vote for real change.

[anonymous171]

5. Yeah, and you can do that by voting for the people who aren't corporate owned.

The ballot is still as powerful as it ever was.

[SIMPLYB1980]

7. That is why I say this fight is futile.

Also why should only the republicans take money from corporations? They would get even more if some Democrats were unwilling to take it.

[yurbud]

10. as we are seeing with teabaggers mucking up GOP, there are limits to what money can buy

[SIMPLYB1980]

12. I look at the anti all corporation folks as our form of tea baggers

anyway. So much disgust and no way to put it into motion must be really frustrating.

[yurbud]

13. I was hoping Obama saw the real middle way, but he apparently doesn't

He could have been pro-business AND progressive by pointing out and correcting the real harm done by a couple of industries like banking, Wall Street, and health insurance do to all other kinds of businesses and having no mercy on them.

He did not do that.

So it is pretty clear that someone can't be part-corporate and part-progressive anymore than they can be a little pregnant.

[yurbud]

11. and if Democrats could say to voters, ''I'm not taking money from the people who screwed you

and I'll never work for them,'' that would be a hard message for Republicans to counter.

[dflprincess]

17. And the Democrats would get more votes

if they actually represented the people instead of selling us out.

Poll after poll showed the public wanting a strong public option (and a slight majority wanting single payer) but we were ignored in order to protect all those "campaign donations" they get.

[damntexdem]

15. Oh come on: do we really want to cause so many Dem pols to lie to us?

Of course the GOP does apparently require GOP pols to take a corruption pledge. ;-)