A Big Reason Why Many Americans Despise Members of Congress
What would you say if I told you that committee chairs were for sale in Congress? And what would you say if I told you that many members of Congress spend far more time on the telephone raising money than on the jobs that the people of their states actually elected them to do?
There is a reason why so many Americans absolutely hate Congress. At this moment, Congress has an approval rating of just 15 percent, and approval ratings for Congress have been at extremely low levels for a very long time.
We all know that Congress has become completely corrupt, that it is completely unresponsive to the American people and that it has become all about the money. Many have asked why I would want to become part of such a corrupt institution, and I respond by saying that it is time to take our government back.
In the very close race that I am currently involved in, there is an exceedingly clear choice between politics as usual and someone that is committed to going to Washington and turning the system completely upside down.
I believe that we need to send people to Washington who will be willing to stand up to the leadership of both parties. Below, I am going to share some things that a current member of Congress is saying about the corruption in D.C. that will blow your mind.
Many would suggest that the corruption is so pervasive that it is useless to try to do anything about it. But I say that if “we the people” can get Donald Trump into the White House, then “we the people” can also take Congress back.
To get a feel for how passionate I am about this, please watch the short speeches that I made to the Latah County Republicans and the Nez Perce County Republicans over the weekend. The response to both talks was incredibly positive, and we are winning over more voters with each passing day.
We have just launched our final money bomb of the 2018 primary campaign, and we are trying to raise $35,000 so we can fully implement our entire plan for pulling ahead in this very tight race over the last 60 days.
U.S. Representative Ken Buck was elected to Congress in 2014, and he recently authored a book that is shaking Washington to the core. The following is what USA Today had to say about it …
And the second-term Republican is unlikely to make many more with Tuesday’s publication of his tell-all book, Drain the Swamp: How Washington is Worse Than You Think, co-authored with Bill Blankschaen.
In it, Buck says lawmakers are mostly “fat and happy alligators who feel pretty darn comfortable in the swamp.” He casts Republican leaders as “playground bullies” who go to great lengths, including yanking subcommittee chairmanships and canceling lawmakers’ overseas trips, to punish dissenters. And he decries a “pay-to-play” system in which plum committee assignments and leadership slots are tied to lawmakers’ fundraising skills instead of their policy expertise.
One of the things Buck has revealed that upset me the most is the fact that committee chairs are essentially for sale in Washington. Here is a brief excerpt from Buck’s book …
“Here’s how it works for Republicans. If you want to serve on a committee, you have to raise money for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). The amount varies depending on the committee and role. For example, to serve on a B or C level committee, a GOP House freshman member must raise $220,000 every two years … Veteran members on A committees must raise more than twice that amount—$450,000 … If you become the chair of a B committee—congratulations—you’re now expected to raise $875,000 a year for the NRCC. Chairing an A committee means you must raise $1.2 million.”
In order to raise such large amounts of money, members of Congress are expected to spend approximately four hours a day on the telephone raising money. This is something I wrote an extended article about last week.
I have already pledged that I am not going to participate in that system, and I am not going to make those calls.
I believe members of Congress should be spending their time in Washington doing what they were elected to do, and if you want to see this current system dismantled, I hope you will stand with us.
Because the Washington money machine is not behind me, we are funding our campaign entirely through grassroots donations. Hundreds upon hundreds of patriots all over the nation have helped us surge toward the top of this race.
If we do not stand up to the corruption in Washington, it will just continue to get worse and worse and worse.
That is why we need to send fighters to D.C., and I am being very bold about the fact that I am not going there to play nice. I am going there to turn over the tables and to turn the current corrupt system upside down, and party leadership is not going to like that at all.
According to The Hill, those who do not play along with the current corrupt system often pay a very high penalty:
And what if you, as a member of Congress, decide not to play along? For starters, you won’t be able to use the NRCC call suites that are conveniently located two blocks from the House office buildings, and the leadership will put out the word to the K Street lobbying community that they are not to donate or raise funds for you if they wish to stay in the leadership’s good graces. If you’re particularly rebellious, you’ll be stripped of your committee assignments, and maybe even be challenged in a primary by a leadership-backed candidate.
If they try to do those things to me, I still will not back down.
After all, I am not going there to be a career politician. {eoa}
For the original article, visit endoftheamericandream.com.
