McCain Rails at Election Agency Wants Budget Reform

I'm marking today on the calendar. It is a rare day that I hear Sen. McCain say something that makes sense. I'm sure that the solution he proposes will be as cockamamie as his campaign finance reform bill, but that remains to be seen.

Sen. John McCain said yesterday that the Federal Election Commission is "corrupt" and that lobbying reform is not the solution to cleaning up a fundraising scandal that has engulfed Capitol Hill.

"We've got a Federal Election Commission that is corrupt, and we've got ethics committees that aren't working," Mr. McCain said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"All the lobbying reform in the world will not do the job until you stop the earmarking. [It's] the reason why we have 34,000 lobbyists, the reason why we have now 15,000 earmarks. In 1994, there were 4,000 earmarks," Mr. McCain said.

I agree wholeheartedly that loading up bills with unrelated (and related) pork has to come to an end. Getting politicians to pass such restrictions may take a massive grassroots uprising, unlikely since people look at the pork coming their way as justified. It's vote buying plain and simple, the very center of a politician's focus so I'm not holding my breath.

The congress could pass a bill addressing this issue, if they do it will be as screwed up as campaign fiancee reform is. They are not interested in making reelection more difficult. When we as individual citizens decide that our pork is as bad as pork for other states then we may get somewhere. The voting public leads the politicians not the other way around. Congressmen are not leaders despite the label applied by the press. They do what they believe will lead to their reelection. Understanding that and working within that context will yield results where appealing to sound principles will only lead to lip service.

So the effort here is to convince our friends and neighbors to give up on our special projects and "jobs" programs. When the politicians find they must buy votes by not loading the pork they will fall in line surprisingly fast. What makes politicians look like leaders is their talent for seeing the trends and getting out in front quickly enough that it looks like it was their idea in the first place. To reform congress we must first reform our priorities and expectation of what we want from congress.