Since who knows when, the government, to wit the officials elected to serve therein, have adopted a principal by which they determine the merit of pending legislation, qualifications of appointees, priority of budget items, and even the requirement of their attendance at regular sessions of business.

That principal is, "If there is a buck in it, OK. The one with the most bucks for me wins. If you don’t have any bucks for me, don’t even bother. The only loyalty wortwhile is to the greenback."

The normal, accepted course of business, the expected and demanded protocol for government officials has become one of greed, subversion, collusion, bribery, influence peddling, extortion, and outright grand theft from anyone and everyone seeking any favor, decision, or action from or by any of them. Their business creed, "If you can’t pay, go away. "

Political action committees, campaign funds, slush accounts, contract awards, illegal arms sales, drug trafficing, and prostitution have all become the legal tender recognized and demanded by those in public office. In fact, the overwhelming inspiration to seek public office is not the altruistic willingness to serve and improve our nation, but is the guarantee and adopted right of becoming insanely wealthy and never having to earn a dime of it. Jesse Unruh, a state official of California in the 60’s and 70’s, once said, "Money is the mother’s milk of politics, and there’s too many muthas getting too much milk." Mr. Unruh knew politics and what made it work and was not afraid to tell it.

I could go on and on spouting the methods and principals of congressmen and women in their efforts to rob the country and keep us from stopping them, but most any person not deeply sleeping and halfway cognizant knows the truth and can see the true reasons for the deficit, constantly increasing taxes, routine reductions in services and benefits to the public, and countless criminal actions against officials. Greed, the love of money.

Let me now attempt to meet the responsibilty that should be required of anyone publicly complaigning and criticizing anything, I will offer my suggestions for a remedy thereto.

Seeing that,

• Elected officials are expected to act on behalf of their constituents,
• Elected Officials are paid very well for their service,
• Bribery and extortion are real,
• They need to be free of non-pertinent influences,

 I hereby suggest laws be passed or changed to criminalize the posession of or attempt to posess any form of legal tender (money) by any local, state, or federal official who was elected to office by a general election of the voters. What did I say? Make it illegal for our elected officials to have any money of any kind whatsoever. My law would put a senator in prison for at least ten years if he was found with two dollars cash in his pocket, an undeclared checking or savings account, a jar of pennies under his bed, or even a postage stamp in his wallet. He would suffer the same penalty if he was caught giving college lectures on the side for pay, had an undeclared stock option, or was shown to have received loans, gifts, or any other payouts of cash not including his salary as an official. Essentially, posession of anything that could be used in trade as payment would be a prison sentence.

 In support of that,

• All elected officials will be required to declare all assets, cash, real property, investments, etc. and to deposit said assets into an escrow to be held active but unavailable to the official as long as he holds elected office.
  
•  The official will be paid a regular, considerable salary for their service and, in addition, will be alotted an all encompassing expense account to cover all of his and his family’s needs during the term of his service. All transportation costs such as gasoline, vehicle maintenance, insurance, all food, clothing, medical, and utility costs, all entertainment such as movie and stage theater tickets, sports events, concerts, vacation costs, books, games, toys, fishing/camping gear, etc., all mortgage/rent payments, declared and approved loan payments, virtually anything and everything he needs to provide a normal, upper middle class lifestyle for him and his family will be provided and paid for by the government, but he will never see a dime of it himself. Even postage will be provided via the congressional post office.
  
•  The official will be prohibited from any income generating activity such as speaking tours, book signings and publishings, lobbying, or anything that could cause him to receive cash or credit while in the public office.

 If you implement the statute and impose severe penalties there will still be a few who find a way to get around the law and sell the power we have bestowed on them to do our work to the highest bidder. But, is there any doubt that such a law would deter those whose hearts and minds were not criminally predetermined? Don’t you think that a law such as this would remove the surety of easy wealth as the main reason for most of those seeking office and thereby cull the undesirables?

 Make the law a promise to incarcerate them for ten or twenty, or even fifty years for violating the trust of the voters and I truly believe we would not be in the financial and legal state the government has put us in for very much longer.