And the Mike Easley problem. And maybe even the Jim Black problem.
Money. Lots of it. But actually a drop in the bucket compared to overall government spending.
We need to radically increase the pay scale for elected and appointed government officials. I’m talking like $10m. a year for president, $5m. a year for governors, $3m. for cabinet secretaries. We have got to attract a better class of person to the job.
With the pay jump would come much increased disclosure requirements, especially involving all electronic records, streamlined recall procedures, and limits — maybe even an outright ban — on any government-related lobbying work after leaving office. Legislative offices are a tough nut due to the large number of gerrymandered, non-competitive districts out there. Ideally you’d fix that first before showering incumbents with a lifetime office and an untold financial windfall. But you know what, who cares — we couldn’t possibly get worse policy out of the yahoos than we are right now.
The system is broken and no amount of tinkering around the edges will fix it. The great American wealth machine has brought political office within the reach of even the most craven and slow-witted citizens. And what do they do with it? Set about disassembling that machine bit-by-bit, vote-by-vote, decree-by-decree, cheat-by-cheat.
We have got to get men and women of some talent, ability, and character in positions of power before it is too late. If it isn’t already.
