One Solution to Poverty
Matt Metz 10/6/15 Here’s a way to solve poverty in the United States without
spending a single tax dollar. This proposal is effective, simple, and
eliminates the middleman. First,
we need to understand that the United States of America is a
corporatocracy,
not a democracy. In a
constitutional democracy,
citizens run the country by electing representatives who look out for the
people’s best interests. But we know that isn’t happening. Our politicians
instead look out for the best interests of large, well-funded, and
powerful corporations, and special interest and trade groups. These
include the oil and gas industry’s American Petroleum Institute, large
banks and financial institutions, and the National Rifle Association.
Politicians look out for these organizations for one simple reason: these
groups get the politicians elected. How? By contributing billions of
dollars to the campaigns of candidates who look out for them, and we all
know that
it takes billions of dollars to get elected
because votes are purchased through advertising. In essence, votes from
the electorate are being purchased by large corporations. My proposal is simple. Let’s be
more above-board
and direct by simply allowing
corporations and special interest groups to literally purchase votes,
eliminating the politicians’ campaign groups, media consultants, and
television advertising from the process. It would work like this. “Mr. Jones,” a representative from
JP Morgan Chase would say to ordinary citizens, “how much would it cost to
purchase your vote so that we can get our pro-banking candidate elected?
How does $1000 sound to you?” The citizen might reply “Well, that’s a nice
offer, but I already have an offer from Exxon/Mobile who is willing to pay
me $1500 to get their oil-and-gas candidate elected. You’ll have to do
better.” Eventually, citizens would end up with cash (which would be
tax-free for me and of course a tax-deduction for the large corporation),
and the corporations would end up with their candidates in office, which
is what they’ve been doing for years. We would have eliminated the media
consultants, campaign managers, and television networks from the process
and put money directly into the hands of the electorate. As a side
benefit, we would no longer be barraged with political calls during dinner
and offensive prime-time television advertising. Wealthy people, who don’t need this extra money, would keep
their votes and cast those votes themselves (arguably for the large
corporations, anyway); the people at the bottom of the economic ladder,
who need the money and otherwise likely wouldn’t even vote, get
additional, needed income. And of course now EVERYONE’s vote counts. Everybody wins. So let’s recognize that votes are already being purchased;
let’s just change the process to put the money into the hands of our needy
citizens instead of other large corporations and politicians. |
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