Republican candidate Jim Ruben on "Mega-Donor Incumbent" complex and the romnibus spending bill

2014 Republican candidate for US Senate Jim Ruben wrote a column about the way to fix the corrupted government system and went over briefly about the bipartisan cromnibus spending bill.

He mentioned that there's this large, bi-partisan supported incumbent protection amendment snuck into this $1.1 trillion dollar spending bill, and the House voted on it without even reading it. Considering how President Obama signed this into a law, we get to see donors giving more money to the incumbents, and two political parties depending on these corporate donations are now protected under the law. What's more outrageous that this amendment "was drafted at the request of Reid by Marc Elias, the same Perkins Coie attorney who successfully argued for the super PAC loophole before the Federal Election Commission."

In short, Washington is now ruled by a corporate-sponsored one-party disguised themselves as two-party system, and this law just officially confirmed this status.

They only listen to big guys with big money, rather than the American people they suppose to listen to.

They let big companies monopolize everything and suppress healthy competition and economic progress.

Rubens continue to explain how to this "mega-donor-incumbent" complex made it more difficult for non-establishment candidates to communicates with voters:

The media tends to ignore candidates unable to win the mega-donor “money primary.” This is how the M-I complex suppresses debate about disfavored and uncomfortable issues and positions. So, voters hear little about the hard choices needed to balance the budget, about regulatory capture of fiscal and monetary policy by Wall Street, or about national security alternatives to endless war.

He proposed a three-part alternative to today's form of corruption:

- Enact a public elections finance system for candidates voluntarily opting out of the current corrupted money system. Each two years, every voter is given a $50 tax rebate voucher assignable to and spendable only by in-district candidates for Congress or president. As shown in Maine, which has a state-level public elections finance system, candidates and elected officials preferring to focus on all of their constituents have the financial incentive to do so.

- Require searchable, real-time online reporting of all contributions to any candidate or organization engaging in campaigning for or against candidates, legislation or regulatory activity. While disclosure can suppress paid speech, there is a stronger and offsetting public interest in knowing about real or perceivable conflicts of interest involving public money or the public trust.

- Remove all political spending and contribution limits. Attempts to limit private political spending have failed and the First Amendment protects the right of wealthy and well-organized people to speak using as much money as they wish.

Although I find the last one to be questionable, but I agree with the first two of the alternative. We need more transparency on political contribution and switch from today's system to public elections finance system. Some may decided to stay "business as usual" by arguing that public finance is no cure at all but these are the same people who happens to work for top billionaires like the Koch brothers, who donates right-wing candidates.

Trust me. I have met one so-called expert who argued against public finance. Later turns out to be a well-known Koch-puppet.