What Happened?

At the top end 72% of the nation’s wealth is controlled by 5% of the population, at the bottom end 80% of the population controls about 7% of its wealth. So the ‘Middle Class’ consists of 15% of the population controlling about 21% of the wealth.

I want to say that I don’t begrudge the wealthy their prosperity and I feel for the poor, I suspect I’m amongst the ‘middle class’ – certainly not wealthy and not living in poverty.

What I’m concerned about is that our democratic system has been highjacked, everyone’s vote is still equal, one man or woman one vote, but our influence/access to our representatives is not.

There is talk of the cost of the next presidential campaign exceeding a billion dollars per candidate! We in Florida know that Rick Scott spent ~$70,000,000 to win his position as Governor.

The real focus of any elected official is job security, in the case of term limited positions it’s a move up the political ladder – from state to federal position. In our country at this time, that means they need money, donations from individuals, industry groups and special interest political groups, PACs. Which of these segments donate the most money to any individual running for office?

I picked a politician at random, Eric Cantor (R) Virginia, he has received a total of $5,500,000 in contributions; the following data comes from Maplight.org . Where his contributions came from:

                                                                79% from outside his district

                                                                65% from outside Virginia        

I don’t believe that Cantor’s contributions are much different than other politicians.

The question I pose is this – Who will Cantor listen to when it comes to voting or writing bills?

Will it be the residents of his district in VA who voted for him and donated $10.00 to his campaign or will it be the securities industry that donated over $500,000.00?

The real question – Who does Eric Cantor represent?

There is an answer to this situation, but because I don’t have the billions to donate we know it will never happen.

• Limit the length of campaign time for any office.
• Limit the amount that can be spent in any campaign.
• Original sources for all campaign funds must be reported.
• Limit professional lobbyist’s access to equal constituents’ access time.  

On paper we have a constitutional republic with a democratic electoral process in fact it has degenerated into a game of ‘he with the most money wins’.