On the recordDecember 31, 2012
The question settling over this Capitol as we face the fiscal cliff is: How can this be happening? It's hyperpartisanship meets Citizens United. America's politics are so saturated with money and so politically polarized that the system cannot function to meet its obligations to keep the government running. But make no mistake about it--government does work. It's working for Pentagon contractors, for arms manufacturers, for oil companies, for coal companies. It's working for those who want to hold down wages and suppress the rights of workers. It's working for drug companies whose sweetheart deal on prescription drugs blew a hole in the Medicare budget. The apparent dysfunctionality of government masks the reality that the tax resources of government increasingly are going to the highest bidders in a $4 billion national election. The debris at the bottom of the fiscal cliff will be the wrecked hopes of doctors and Medicare patients, unemployed workers who can't protect their families, and middle class taxpayers who just can't pay any more. Our Nation's pose at the fiscal cliff is proof of the necessity of a constitutional amendment, H.J. Res. 100, to rid this Nation of the corrupting influence of special interest money with public financing, which recreates a true government of the people. ____________________
