Burn it Down and Walk Away

The title is a line from one of my favorite Zao songs, 5 Year Winter, which is pretty much the best breakup song ever. Yes, ever. (Also, Zao has a new album coming out! GLEE!)



However, right now, as America heads deeper into, take your pick, 1)the worst financial crisis since the depression, 2)a bad crisis, but not as bad as the late 70s, early 80s, 3)a recession and a bad situation, but if we just hang out it will be business as usual in a couple years, I really feel it applies to more.



Now, I'm not a radical liberal commie pinko (though, at the rate I'm going....) because all that stuff doesn't work any better. But the system is broken. Not just the financial system. Not just unfettered capitalism, not just our governing system, not just the system of regulation or oversight. The entire intertwined system is broken and now is the perfect time to begin to fix it.


Will it be difficult? Yes, but we are facing great difficulty now as it is. Will certain people (with lots of money and power) be upset? Yes. But this must be done. We must seperate the power of goverment from the power of lobbyists/big business.


Tom Daschle is just the latest, but most prominent, person to show the problems with this. Aside from not paying his taxes, how did he think it was ethically ok to move from his job as lobbyist/consultant, some of his work which was on behalf of healthcare companies, into leading the department of HHS is strange enough. But, the fact he has made over $5million since leaving office in his job "bringing people together," code for hooking up lobbyists with current politicians, is troubling to me.


Now, Daschle is far from the only one. My own ex-congressman Bob Michel, is currently lobbying on behalf of the pharmeceutical industry. This saddens me because the pharmeceutical industry is directly responsible for a part of the rising health care costs in this nation.

Since President Obama is putting a $500k executive pay cap on companies recieving bailout money (yes, its only symbolic) this would be a perfect time to start putting in more than symbolic measures across the board. This symbiotic relationship of Congress, lobbyists, and corporations must stop. Its bad for the country. Its bad for everyone, except a small group of people who make lots of money doing it.