HONORING OUR DEAD SOLDIERS
(Printed in the Burlington Free Press and other Vermont newspapers)

On Memorial Day we honor all soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives to protect the independence, values and ideals of our country and its citizens. Our system of representative democracy is one of the most important of these ideals. It allows all American voters to choose their representatives in furtherance of our goal of a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Given the chance, I suspect these soldiers we honor would like to know how well our federal system of representative government serves its citizens today.

Here’s what they would find:

The amount of funding for all federal candidates campaigning for office averages about $1 billion annually. Ninety-six percent of all American citizens don’t contribute a dime of this money directly to any federal candidate or political party.

In a practical sense, the bulk of the serious campaign money, in amounts of $200 and over, comes from just 3/10ths of 1 percent of all Americans.

The federal political candidates you and I choose among are largely pre-selected, financed and brought to us by a tiny minority of the wealthiest and most powerful financial interests in America.

Winning candidates owe their rich and powerful backers a great debt of gratitude, and have tremendous incentive to please them in crafting federal policy and legislation. Pleasing these rich and powerful backers costs the majority of U.S. citizens plenty, regardless what political party we support or ideology we hold.

We all pay hundreds of billions of dollars for these and for other benefits conferred by Congress on these special interests. We pay part of this money out of our wallets at places like the pharmacy counter and at the gas pump. We pay more money from our checkbooks for higher taxes to replace the money that never came into our federal treasury due to Congressional subsidies and gifts to selected industries.

Money from these powerful special interests distorts our national priorities and diverts money away from improvements that clearly benefit the vast majority of American citizens in such areas as health care, education and the environment.

Congressional leaders opposing change to our present campaign finance practices don’t even attempt to explain why continuing this system is in the best interests of us, the vast majority of American citizens. Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, who leads the offensive to protect the current system, clearly bets against us. He openly and arrogantly says we don’t care and it’s not important enough to us. The wealthy and powerful financial interests supporting incumbents in Congress bet against us as well. They know that the less we care and the less we pay attention and participate, the more leverage they have in getting their views heard and their preferred legislation and policies enacted. In short, our indifference increases their strength and influence.

We can honor our dead soldiers by working together to achieve the ideals they gave their lives to protect. As citizens, it is our constant responsibility that our government remains of, by and for the people, not the special interests. Our right to alter our government for the common good must be used to restore our government in service of our common interests as citizens. It is our duty to our children and to future generations of American citizens.

To do this we must replace the $1 billion of annual campaign money from special interests with money on behalf of all citizens. We must provide our elected Congressional Representatives with proper incentives to again pass legislation on behalf of all citizens. We must broaden our choice of candidates to include those who are not independently wealthy or beholden to special interests. In sum, we must completely repair our democracy and restore faith and trust in our elected representatives and institutions of government. Accomplishing this will be truly honoring our dead soldiers.

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