Third World America - Arianna Huffington [63]
We must stop squandering these resources. If the middle class is to thrive and continue to be the backbone of America, we need to create the conditions that will allow these dreams to flourish–and our country to move forward in wiser ways.
“You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps,” said World War I–era British prime minister David Lloyd George.5 And you can’t cross it in a series of little steps either. Instead, we have to reconnect with our bold national identity and once again take “big chances on big ideas.”6
Stopping our descent into Third World status won’t be easy. It will take daring initiatives from both the private and public sectors—supercharged with an infusion of personal responsibility.
On the one hand, this moment in our history demands that we stop waiting on others—especially others living in Washington, D.C.—to solve the problems and right the wrongs of our times. Now, more than ever, we must mine the most underutilized leadership resource available to us: ourselves.
On the other hand, the problems our society and, indeed, much of the world are facing are too monumental to be solved solely by individuals. We still need the raw power that only big government initiatives—and big government appropriations—can deliver.
But, as we’ve seen, in today’s Washington, the fix is in. So that’s the first thing we need to fix.
I.
ON A NATIONAL LEVEL
THE MOTHER OF ALL REFORMS
It’s a classic catch-22: The most effective way of fixing the multitude of problems facing America is through the democratic process, but the democratic process itself is badly broken. That is why the first step toward stopping our relentless transformation into Third World America has to be breaking the choke hold that special interest money has on our politics.
This has to start with a complete reboot of the way we finance our elections. The most effective means of restoring the integrity of our government is through the full public financing of political campaigns.
It’s the mother of all reforms—the one reform that makes all other reforms possible. After all, he who pays the piper calls the tune. If someone’s going to own the politicians, it might as well be the American people. Think of it: No hard money, no PAC money, no endless dialing for dollars, no quid pro dough deals. No more lobbyists sitting in House and Senate offices literally writing tailor-made loopholes into laws. No more corporate welfare giveaways buried in huge spending bills. No more dangerous relaxation of safety regulations that can be traced to campaign donations. Just candidates and elected officials beholden to no one but the voters.
Among those working to make this happen are Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig and Joe Trippi, who ran Howard Dean’s Internet-fueled 2004 presidential campaign.7 Together they’ve founded Fix Congress First!—an attempt to build a grassroots movement to pressure Congress to pass public financing legislation. And to make sure the legislation can’t be struck down by an activist Supreme Court, the group is also pushing for a Constitutional amendment. “We must,” says Lessig, “establish clearly and without question the power in Congress to preserve its own institutional independence.”8
In May 2010, I was one of about 430,000 people to receive an email from the group with the eye-catching subject line “300 Million Lobbyists,” promoting an effort to create “the biggest lobby in the history of American politics.” And who is part of this all-powerful lobby? You, me, and the rest of the 300 million citizens of the United States.
As the Fix Congress First! founders put it: “This isn’t a Democratic issue or a Republican issue—it’s a fundamental question about what kind of democracy we want to have.”9
If you want to know what a democracy no longer beholden to special interests would mean for the political