Bill Frezza at RealClearMarkets has a good piece on Congress’  “business model” which is driven by campaign contributions in return for lobbyist-induced, deficit-funded vote buying.  And then, there’s the two parties, whose leaders defend the status quo and are owned by the recipients of their largesse:

Political parties help define, organize, and maintain this system. Parties rely on activists and pundits to promote their brand. Parties offer voters a team to identify with and champions to root for, as well as an opposing team to hate and villains to despise. The media reports on each team’s setbacks and victories as champions and villains battle to write new laws and give away money. Parties provide talking points for media and pundits to distribute. These help spare voters the effort of thinking for themselves.

One thing our two major parties agree on is that it would be terrible to have more than two major parties. Congress arranges the voting and campaign finance laws to ensure that no new parties can grow to significant size. Parties promote the idea that the practical choice for voters is the lesser of two evils. Most voters accept this and go so far as to accuse fellow citizens who refuse to vote for politicians from either major party of shirking their civic duty.

The founding fathers were very smart. But they were not smart enough to prevent this business model from emerging.

I cry for my country.

Just so.  It’s very sad. We need a new party. Cooler heads can prevail to make others roll.  Campaign contributions from all entities, except individuals must cease. This means no unions, political action groups, special interest groups, for-profit, or not-for-profit corporations will be allowed to lobby or to contribute to members of Congress for any purpose.  It’s the only way to make the business model no longer profitable.

The power to  create money rests with Congress.  But Congress farmed out (abdicated) its responsibility to a third party – private banks – in return for kick-backs in the form of campaign contributions.  Washington’s blog has some good thoughts on this. For example:

And in 1933, Congressman Wright Patman asked Congress the following rhetorical question:

“Why is it necessary to have Government ownership and operation of banks? Let us go back to the Constitution of the United States and follow it … The Constitution of the United States says that Congress shall coin money and regulate its value. That does not mean … that the Congress of the United States, composed of the duly elected representatives of the people, have a right to farm out the great privilege to the banking system, until today a few powerful bankers control the issuance and distribution of money – something that the Constitution of the United States says Congress shall do.”But FDR did not heed the insights of McFadden or Patman. He kept the status quo of the Federal Reserve acting as the “central bank”, even though the Fed caused the Depression.

He also maintained the Fed’s power of creating money and credit, and charging the government interest on that money, even though that was contrary to the intention of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution. See this, this and this.

If we can get the FED audited, we can make the average American understand this scam and FORCE the government to properly exercise its responsibility to create money WITHOUT delegating it to a special interest.

Holman Jenkins of the WSJ says President Obama will never jeopardize his re-election by hurting the UAW:

“Even a “prepackaged” filing runs too much risk of a judge imposing more “sacrifice” on the UAW than the administration is prepared to tolerate.

GM bondholders understand this: They’ve been intransigent precisely because they calculate the UAW is too important to Democratic electoral politics for Mr. Obama to risk losing control of the reorganization process to a bankruptcy judge.”

What could be and what will be:

“Better than trying to rewrite GM’s business relationships — the job of a bankruptcy judge — Mr. Obama might take up the duties of a president. He might try giving the country a coherent auto policy for a change. He could repeal two fleets so Detroit could build its small cars profitably offshore and tame the UAW monopoly in the process. He could dump CAFE or impose a $5 gasoline tax so at least customers would have a reason to buy the cars Washington is forcing Detroit to build.

None of this will happen. Mr. Obama will be content with incoherent policies that poll well — which means GM, Chrysler and perhaps Ford eventually will need taxpayer subsidies as far as the eye can see — or until a real bankruptcy sometime after November 2012.”

Something tells us Mr. Holman is right about GM, so how beholding is Mr. Obama to the banks? Will there be pain for the banks, who have contributed vast sums to the president’s re-election, as well as to virtually all of Congress?  The answer seems obvious.  But will this approach backfire as a populist backlash starts against GM, AIG and the banks’ bailout bonanza?