I Am Not An ATM!

I am an 80 year old man on a pretty fixed income who lives in the State of California. I have medical bills, a wide variety of medical issues, am alive via a plethora of drugs, living alone with a home mortgage (a 30 year loan given to me at age 70). I am NOT an ATM with an endless flow of money.

I don't know about you but I'm getting pretty darn sick of the hands "out" for my money. It comes as mail, text messages and email relentlessly each and every day. 

It seems to me any one can start a charity with tax free status and become its CEO. I recently received Charity Watch's recent report guide (40 pages) and let me tell you, there's a charity for just about anything you can think of. I know! It fills my mailbox, my daily text message and 100's of emails in all my email accounts daily. Give to one charity and you will gain 100 more appeals. Maybe I should start one myself. Some of these CEO salaries are eye watering and the amount actually going to many charities is pretty low. Many are only 60% effective with salaries in the $200-600,000 range. One is 49% effective with salary ranges $167-385,000 range. Pretty good work if you can get it.

And this barely scratches the surfacee. Many of the charities in the Coachella Valley aren't even mentioned.

However, my biggest complaint is elections. As if those in California aren't enough ( our recent governor primary had at least 26 candidates if not more before election day), I had 49 other states Senate and Representatives and even more PAC's asking for money. If I gave to them all - Alan can you send first $3, then $5, then $20 and one asked for $100 from a person in a state 2,000 miles AWAY - I'd be bankrupt in a week. And why, WHY should I send money to Alaska, Montana, Georgia, Vermont, even Texas? They won't do anything for me. It's not like I write a Senator in Alaska about a problem I'm having in California. Will they help me get an American visa for my Chinese partner where our embassy in Beijing won't take appointments for visa renewalsl? Either we get to vote for EVERY Senator or Representative in EVERY state or you run and get campaign money from your own state.

Article 1 of our Constitution states "All legislative Powers herein shall be vested in a Congress which shall be comprised of Members of a Senate and House of Representatives. House members are elected every two years. It goes on to state there will be two Senators from each state for a term of six years. There is no set limit of Representatives. It also adds Senator must be at least 30 years old, lived as a citizen for nine years and "be an inhabitant of the state for which he will be chosen."

It also states times, places and manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature. It also gives Congress the option of altering election laws. 

As a youth I knew most elections for state electors was held by and for those running for office in their own state or county or city. Tammany Hall in NYC comes to mind. At some point, as elections cost more and more each party reached out the wealthy benefactors to help pay for campaigns. Clearly at some point candidates saw the fortunes of the Democratic and Republican Parties grow and must have asked themselves, " why not me?" Why not? It's free money!

This is too big of a cash cow to BBQ and we know Congress will never, ever untie the money leash they have been milking for decades. The same goes for every elected official in every state. I propose an electronic ballet be created by impartial, hopefully neutral officials, in every state, using the same verbiage, held on the same day that asks voters what limits should be set for money raised, time for when an election is held and if term limits should be set for the entire Congress to two terms as we limit our President and Vice President. In the UK once an election is called candidates have 90 days to run for office! Wouldn't that be heaven? From our four years or every two years for Representatives to three months?

The Founding Fathers never expected  Congress to remain in government for their lifetimes. Why should ours think so? Who knows, we might just get a government that works again.

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