Topic 6 of 8: How will you make government more TRANSPARENT?
TOM: Publicly funded elections, prohibiting corporations from giving to campaigns, Instant Runoff Voting, Proportional Representation. People’s voices aren’t being heard, or Congress wouldn’t have approved the bailout. I’m not against corporations but they shouldn’t have a voice in political campaigns.
DEBBIE: There’s an important part in our lives for both gov’t and the private sector, but we’ve spent the last 20 years trying to get gov’t out of everything. Business does not always have the public’s best interest in mind. Gov’t provides a level of transparency and accountability you cannot get from the private sector. It’s so important for gov’t to provide Americans protection from bad food, bad drugs, bad services, bad people, bad nations. We’ve lost a lot of that because we’ve privatized it, losing accountability and transparency. We’ve seen that in the military with Blackwater; we’ve seen it in the health industry, we’ve lost drug regulators, now we see so many stories of people dying from bad drugs and bad food. I agree with Tom that we need to clean up this mess of financing politics which is destroying America’s democracy. Read more…
October 08, 2008
Posted by: Ron & Anna Winship : Category:
Election 2008,
Environment,
Joseph Biden,
Recession,
barack obama,
california,
clean elections,
constitution,
corporate welfare,
democracy,
economy,
energy,
ethics,
john mccain,
sarah palin,
taxes,
transportation
Good grief….what an amazing election year. The events of the day have created a variety of command decision making on the part of the electorate. Big changes are afoot as we know in our economy, our social fabric and our world. It would be too easy to just close our eyes, hold our noses and with a stalwart direction…..just do the same old stuff. We have determined that “this year” that is not an option. The Chinese Year of the Rat…tells us that we need to be resourceful, industrious and stay busy. It also tell us not to be “greedy”….because if we are….their is a giant trap with prize piece of cheese just waiting for us, if we are not careful.
OK, here we go….we will try to offer a few choice words on each issue and of course leave you to make your own choices without argument. Read more…
October 07, 2008
Posted by: Vern Nelson : Category:
clean elections,
democracy
[Lobbying at the Capitol for AB 583: California Clean Money Campaign President Trent Lange, Newport Beach activist / true maverick Republican Allan Beek, State Senator Lou Correa, Vern looking dorky, and Dave Sonneborn of Progressive Democrats of America]
Governor Schwarzenegger has been vetoing worthy bills left and right - Senator Kuehl likened him last week to Sweeney Todd, the Mad Barber of Fleet Street (as played so well by Johnny Depp - YouTube clips over the flip if you missed it.) On the health reform front, not only did he veto the single-payer bill SB 840, as we knew he would, he also vetoed bills that would have cost the state nothing but mandated insurers pay at least 85% of their premium income on medical costs, and that would have limited insurer’s rescission of benefits, all the while dressing up his protection of some of his biggest campaign contributors as concern for the state’s finances.
BUT the Governator always has this tendency to throw us progressives a bone, if it doesn’t cost much to his big backers. And I am happy to announce that last week he signed AB 583, a baby step toward out ultimate goal of clean, fair (publicly funded) elections. From California Clean Money Campaign:
Read more…
