Clean up Congress

Once a congressman gets elected, you know what? He or she never gets unelected until he dies or retires. Congressmen have a reelection rate of about 97%. Once a congressman gets in office, his main job becomes raising money for his next election. The job of representing constituents comes second. Further, the best way to raise money is do it in big chunks. Get some lobbyist or corporation to contribute $100,000 to your reelection campaign. So who does the congressman represent?

The other great way to get reelected is to gerrymander your district so that an opponent of another party can never get enough votes to displace you. This is accomplished by state legislatures, who draw the boundaries of congressional districts to include as many voters of your party as you need to win, and then include a token sample of the opposing party. This is what Tom Delay got the Texas Legislature to do recently; in this case some new congressmen were elected but they were all Republicans.

Congress is working on a law to change this system. They want to try to take some of the politics out of it. Maybe they should consider a representative system: If the Republicans get 40% of the vote and Democrats get 40% and Independents get 20%, split up the congressional delegation in the same proportion.

http://www.thelittlegreenie.com
http://www.trafford.com/04-2119

Six to seven million missing jobs

Outsourcing is starting to look like a much bigger problem than a lot of politicians are willing to admit. In the book "Outsourcing America" the authors reproduce a chart (page 105) from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics of August 29, 2004. In September 2000, the number of employed workers was 133 million and the total US labor force was 142 million. That would give an unemployment rate of 6.3%. In the spring of 2004, employed workers numbered 132 million and the labor force was 48 million, giving an unemployment rate of 10.8%. Something like 6 to 7 millions jobs have gone missing.

Can new industries such as renewable energy and nanotechnology provide the missing jobs? If not, what's going to happen to the 6 to 7 million unemployed workers?

The poor drug companies

The pharmaceutical industry spent more than $800 million since 1998 on lobbyists and political campaigns. In the past year the industry hired nearly 1,300 lobbyists. Some are former lawmakers and some worked for congressional committees or regulatory agencies. The lobbyists got the drug giants a massive tax relief bill and prevented the government from negotiating prices on drug buys. Well, you can buy a lot of persuasion for $800 million. (From a recent news report in Newsday.)

http://www.thelittlegreenie.com
http://www.trafford.com/04-2119

Do we really want to silence the press?

The jailing of Judith Miller is an absolute disgrace. Somebody with influence has got to organize a drive to get Congress to pass the reporter's shield law this year. And it should be made retroactive to the first of 2004.

Whenever top characters in a government commit a crime, they have all the power necessary to cover it up. And if an insider provides a newspaper with otherwise hidden information about the crime, they face the entire power of the executive branch backed up by the judicial branch. Under these conditions only Congress and the press have the power to fight back.

The press has to get the ball rolling. Congress can then form a commitee and issue supeanoes. But the press is the first line of defense against governmental crimes that the government wants to hide. This is why reporters forbona fide news organizations occupy a special place in society. They must be free to report the facts they learn. And in some cases the source of the information about a crime may well be directly or indirectly involved in the crime himself.

So society is faced with a question. On the one hand society can support the government under all conditions--criminall or not--and force a reporter to jeopordize the source of the information about the crime. On the other hand, society can attack the crime of the government. Which is going to do more harm to society--a criminal goverrnment or the reporter who brings the crime to light and refuses to reveal the source?

http://www.thelittlegreenie.com