Nice to see your solutions posted...much more positive, LH. Thanks. I had missed your posting in the other thread as I've been avoiding it.:-)

I agree with most of what you've posted, as well as with Don.

I heard an intriguing proposal the other day to get rid of special interest money for campaigns. David Cay Johnston, from the NYTs said this in an interview with Senior Editor Brian Doherty of REASON ONLINE, about his latest book, Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at the Government's Expense and Stick You With the Bill :

Johnston: For 35 years we tried to reform the government through campaign finance reform, and it hasn't worked, and the Supreme Court is hostile to it. So I suggest we try something new—politician finance reform. I was inspired by the franking privilege. Have all the costs and expenses of being a member of Congress be publicly funded—an unlimited expense account essentially, but with complete disclosure including who they met with and the substance of the conversation—not every detail but generally what they were talking about.

Then there would be a rule that says, now that we paid all costs, including for keeping up two households, if you take so much as a free shot of whisky, you go to prison. Zero tolerance for politicians. If we approach this idea of paying the full real cost of Congress then I think perhaps we can get closer to a system where members of Congress are not thinking about what donors want.

reason: I'm curious if you ever get to the point, studying example after example of how government works to prop up the powerful, where you just throw up your hands and decide that it's government itself that is inherently the problem here...

Johnston: When people say a problem is intractable, I think that's the most un-American thing you can say. The whole idea of America is that we will solve our own problems. We recognize people abuse power, so we limit it—put in checks and balances. We will solve these problems when people decide they care enough to solve them. I think a big problem is many Americans are giving up on democracy. I never throw my hands up about these problems, and if I did, that would be saying that I don't think this ingenious idea, the Constitution, can work, and I do.