Midway through this summer, a high-quality poll found that Democrats in California were overwhelmingly in favor of the upcoming ballot measure for a one-time 5% tax on billionaire wealth.
The ratio was more than 4 to 1. But the state’s most powerful Democrats – including the governor Gavin Newsom, his near-certain successor Xavier Becerra and the Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass – have lined up with Silicon Valley billionaires who’ve raised upward of $340m to defeat the initiative.
Lobbyists already write all the bills. Term limits won’t change that, it will make it slightly more expensive to buy Congress critters. On that point, we need massively expand the house to make it way more expensive to buy Congress and for better individual representation.
It absolutely does make a difference. The good way to have term limits is to not vote for someone when they get captured by lobbyists.
Congress gets bought for cheap. Making the house bigger so each rep covers fewer people is probably good but I doubt it makes bribery unaffordable.
That sentiment is a good way to perpetuate the corrupt status-quo, because it is unrealistic to expect most people to be paying attention until after the primary, when the captured incumbent is already the candidate.
Switching to a bad system because we need to do something isn’t helpful. The underlying point of my comment is that correcting sections is hard and isn’t going to be solved with a simple rule like a term limit.
I think we’re talking past each other. My point was that “not vote for someone when they get captured by lobbyists” doesn’t work when the primary is over and the only remaining choices are the captured politician and the fascist opposition (who would also definitely be captured because that’s part of what fascism is).
Yeah, at this point we’re dealing with guys like Musk single-handedly pouring half a billion into elections, I don’t think it’s an affordability problem. And historically, smaller seats tend to be easier to bribe for, not harder. Look at any local government, especially in less populous areas, they’re some of the most corrupt politicians.
More directly, corporate dollars just don’t have any place in our politics, for any size election.
I don’t support corporate dollars at all.
It really didn’t cost all that much to bribe Senator Collins so our government is affordable at all levels for those with cash.
hence why we also need to tax the rich. They never should have gotten that rich to begin with.
Yes the rich should be taxed but have seen how little cash it takes to bribe someone in congress? Unless the government is pushing taxes to 100% or more, taxes aren’t going to solve bribes.