Wishing TV Was Reality
By Ian Storrar
Posted on Wed Apr 19, 2006 at 07:24:01 PM EST
In the latest episode of 'The West Wing' Jimmy Smit's character,
president-elect Santos, urged the presumed speaker to make
lobby-reform the first bill to reach the House floor under the new
Democratic majority. Santos argued that real reform (no lobbyist
donations to campaigns, or from their clients - special interests) is
the key to all other reforms and effective legislation. Without it, his plans in health care, education, welfare, social security
etc. would be just as unlikely as under the existing majority. The
presumptive speaker refused to consider such a 'process bill' straight
out of the gate, or at all. He planned to maintain the party's slim
new majority and build it with a war-chest of $1,000 checks from K Street
and a well-funded leadership PAC with industry dollars.
It's always nice to see the media and the film and TV industry promote the public interest so well. It's especially refreshing to find that they can explain it so clearly. This is not just a problem with one party - as the show demonstrates. Common Cause wants lobby-reform because it is part of the solution to the problems America faces.
15% of Americans citizens don't have health care because Congress is effectively paid by the health care and pharmaceutical industries to write laws that favor them, making it too expensive for the individual or their employers to buy insurance. Of course, this is a problem that has always existed and has grown over many years (it is also just one example of how we all suffer when incumbents and challengers rely on special interests to get elected). It is still an enormous problem facing the nation.
About 45 million people don't have health care today - equivalent to all the people living in middle America (Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming), according to the Center for American Progress. These people will continue to go without coverage until we convince Congress to legislate a ban on candidates taking any money from special interests and lobbyists who work for them. Then our representatives will find it less in their interest to make bad laws and spend more of their time making decisions that benefit their constituents, ordinary Americans.
Tags: Ethics in Government (all tags)
You are not logged in.
In order to post a comment, you must be logged in. If you have a member account, please log in to comment.
If not, you can make an account just by filling out the form below. It's quick and free.
