Why our congresspeople love the swamp

I watched this C-Span book TV show with Representative Ken Buck, Republican from Colorado, who wrote a book – Drain the Swamp: How Washington Corruption is Worse than You Think.

He talks about how when you are elected to congress you are assigned to different committees.

You would think that you are assigned based on your prior knowledge and skills. For example, if you were in the IT business you will be on a committee overseeing information technology, or a physician would be on a committee looking into medical issues.

You are wrong.

You have to pay your party to be on a particular committee and the more influential the committee, or the higher the ranking in that committee, the more you pay… every year to your party in dues.

The annual dues are so high (potentially over $1 million) that it almost always takes licking the boots of special interest groups to pay for them, and that puts your congressperson in the pocket of these lobbyists. What a surprise!

According to OpenSecrets.Org, lobbyists have spent a total of $30,678,581,236 since 2008! That’s almost $31 billion to further their interests. In 2016, they spent $3,147,612,701, which is an average of $5,883,388.23 per voting congressperson. That’s nearly $6 million a year each!

And you think that our government isn’t corrupt? That’s how our congresspeople are bought and paid for as they must do what they are told, or lose the “donations.”

Your sole job is to vote them back in forever (so they can build a huge federal pension and line up their lucrative lobbying jobs when they quit), and keep yourself in debt by spending on stuff you probably don’t need, but want. That’s good for the banks that want to keep you in debt forever.

And row you do.

Sadly, you mean little to these people. That’s why I ran for office, as the public means everything to me. Unless you spend $500,000 on reaching ~400,000 voters in each district, the voters don’t know who you are. And if not, they vote “incumbent” almost every time.

I suggest that you take ten minutes to see how our government really operates, but disregard the references to a Term Limits Amendment and a Constitutional Convention. They are failed approaches to resolve our problems, but there are two solutions that I’ve written about before that will resolve the perpetual congresspeoples’ never-ending “service.”

Watch to the entire show here, or listen to the mp3 version –

… the “bribery” begins, minutes 6:01-11:50

… the congressional (what passes for the) work week, here

The first fifteen minutes will get your attention. If you have time, listen to the entire interview.