Thursday, September 2, 2010

It’s Time We Take The “For Sale” Sign Off The Capitol Lawn

by Robert Greenwald

When candidates have to raise millions of dollars just to run a competitive campaign, they’re going to turn to wealthy donors, and the voice of the everyday American isn’t going to be heard. It’s time we take the “for sale” sign off the Capitol lawn. We can’t afford the price we’re paying for corporate-sponsored government.


Jim, Barb, Dominica and Chuck, featured in the video above, can’t afford to compete with the influence of corporate donations. When Washington makes decisions regarding their lives, they are not the people getting meetings with lawmakers. Instead, corporate lobbyists come to collect on prior donations made. And the end result means working people suffer from legislative decisions that benefit the rich.

As long as politicians are accountable to the corporations and lobbyists who finance their campaigns, they’re never going to be accountable to the people that elected them. It’s time ordinary Americans had their voices heard. Our elected officials should be concerned with solving our problems and concerns, not those of special interests who can afford to pay for special treatment.

The only way to make Congress accountable to working Americans is to have Fair Elections, where a coal miner’s voice can be heard as clearly as the owner of that mine. We need to put elections back in the hands of ordinary Americans.

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