Cleaning Up The Swamp

The problem is not economic inequality. The problem is not that the rich have too much money, or how they got that money. The problem is part of what they do with that money. They buy legislators.

You are not going to get the rich to quit buying legislators by telling them to stop doing it. People do not stop doing what is working for them until it stops working for them. Pitching tents in public spaces and screaming at rich people that you don’t like them may feel good, but it does not make anything stop working for rich people.

We have to make the sale of legislators stop working for them and, more importantly, we have to make it stop working for the legislators.

The argument has been made that if we throw these corrupt legislators out that we will simply have more corrupt legislators take their place and, furthermore, that even when an honest person is elected to office he becomes corrupted by the cesspool which is the seat of our nation's government. Perhaps that is so.

We can correct that, and the way we do it is to not merely throw the legislators out of office but to prosecute them for being unduly influenced by the money they receive from the rich, for taking bribes to act against public interest. To prosecute them for taking bribes to operate against the interest of the people who are paying their salaries as public servants. It is fairly certain that the example will in fairly short order clean up the swamp. Taking bribes is one thing when the worst you risk is leaving office with a pocket full of money. It’s something else entirely when you risk prison.

The rich cannot buy legislators when legislators are not for sale.