If I Ran The World: Congressional Application (with mavis staples)

If I Ran The World:   Congressional Application

The vast majority of Congress is bought.     Here is a list of who bought our Congress over the last ten years:

Here is what the average election cost since 1986.       That’s a lot of money.

For the first time in history, more than half (261 members) of Congress are millionaires.    You do not have much in common with a millionaire.    You don’t.    Conservative or liberal…..you do not have much in common with a millionaire.    Here is the median net worth of Congress from 2011.     As Mavis is singing in this tune….” somebody said it’s different now, look, it’s just the same….. Pharoahs spin the message, round and round the truth.    They could have saved a million people, How can I tell you?”   Amen to that.   The vast majority of our Congress members are not interested in “change”.   They are interested in winning that next election and getting that campaign financed.    Not with your $5.    They don’t care about your $5.   They want General Electric’s money.      And the Koch brother cash.     Amen.

You know why Congress’s median net worth is so ridiculously different from your net worth and mine?   Because it is really, really, really, really expensive to get a seat in Congress.     And once they get there, they never want to leave.    Because it is really, really, really, really expensive to get a seat in Congress.      And as much as we non-Congress member may hear about term limits and campaign reform, it will never, ever happen.    Because it is really, really, really, really expensive to get a seat in Congress.

We can change this by making some simple rule changes and using the Congressional application below.   I’ve saved us all a bunch of time by writing out the application and the rules.   The single most important change will be that each person running for Congress will have a limit of $5,000 to spend.   And each must fill out the application below, complete the tasks, and submit the papers required for all of us to read.

It should be harder to get into Congress than it is to get a college degree.       It’s easy to get into Congress…provided you have rich friends and are willing to spew vitriol and do the dozens on your opponents.       We can change this.

Begin Congressional application.

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Hello,

Congratulations and thank you for applying to run for Congress.    Whether your goal is to be a member of the Senate or the House of Representatives, we sincerely appreciate that you would like to dedicate a portion of your time to public service.   Only 535 of the 300,000,000 in the United States get to join the club annually and, as you can imagine, we need to have strict regulations regarding whom we allow in.

Below are the rules and regulations as of January, 2015, as well as the application form.   Please fill out the application form below, complete the required tasks,  and complete the essays.  Submit them to your dedicated page at

www.wanttobeincongress.com.

Congressional Campaign Rules

1. You may spend no more than $5,000 per year, per campaign.
2. You must raise this money yourself:   no PAC money is allowed.  You must keep records for each dollar of the $5,000.    For example, if you are selling chocolate cookies door to door to finance your campaign and Mrs. Jones purchases $20 of cookies, please annotate the following.   “Mrs. Jones.   1135 Clague Rd.    (SS # redacted).”   Then, please have Mrs. Jones sign that line in your records.
3. You have three avenues of expression to your voters…your dedicated page at www.wanttobeincongress.com, your Facebook page, your Twitter page, and your Instagram account.     These are the only four tools permissible.
4. When a camera or a microphone is in front of you, you may only discuss the following:
   1. You
   2. Your plan
   3. The benefits of your plan
   4. The precise steps involved in the execution of your plan
   5. The cost of your plan
   6. The return on investment of your plan
   7. CAVEAT & PUNISHMENT:   Should you get in front of a microphone and not be able to explain the items above in your plan, you are grounded from all microphones for fourteen consecutive days.  For example, if you bring up a plan to improve education and then say “we are still hashing out all the details”, you are grounded.    If you blather a lot and use hyperbole in your plan explanation, you are grounded.
   8. When a camera or microphone is in front of you, you are not permitted to make disparaging comments about anyone, throughout history.  Should you truly feel the need to make disparaging remarks about someone else when a camera or microphone is in front of you, you may only make them about the following people:
      • Idi Amin
      • Adolf Hitler
      • c.      Augusto Pinochet
      • d.     Jean Claude “Baby-Doc” Duvalier
      • Anthony Weiner
      • Pol Pot
      • Joseph Stalin

       

   9. We want you to focus the majority of your time on legislating.    Because that is your job.   Your job is not to get re-elected.   That said, you may only serve two consecutive terms in either house, with a maximum of four terms in the combined houses.    You may be a Senator twice and a member of the House of Representatives twice.    After that, you need to go get a job that creates GDP in our economy
   10. Should you be elected, you forfeit any right top be a member of any lobbying group, in perpetuity.     Should there be reincarnation, you may serve as a lobbyist in your next life.
   11. Should you be elected, you also forfeit any right to be the host of your own talk show on a twenty-four hour news program for a period of ten (10) years after you leave elected office.

Short Answer:   Please Answer Each Question

Name: ______________________

State:  ______________________

Circle One:    Senate      House of Representatives

Do you have a trust fund?      (please circle one)     Yes     No

Please list all jobs you had before college that you used to pay for college and each job you had during college to pay for college:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

If you had zero (0) jobs before college or during college to pay for college, please print the following in the space below and initial your printing:   “My mommy and daddy paid for college and I never really had to work until I got out of college.”

Please list ten friends (and their phone numbers) you have who make less than $50,000 per year.   First names are fine.   We will be calling all ten of these friends for a reference check:   please let them know we will be calling.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

How much money did you make last year?

How much did you pay in federal taxes and state taxes?

Please list your primary tax shelters below

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Please attach your high school, college, and graduate school transcripts here:

Did you serve in the military?  (please circle one)   Yes    No

If your answer was “no”, please explain why you chose not to serve in the military.     You had the opportunity to serve in the military and did not even have to run for that position…..you could have simply shown up and signed up.    Right?     Because now you are saying “I want to serve my country in Congress!” and, while we all appreciate that, most of us are confused as to why you didn’t choose to serve your country when you could have don so in the military.      Is your desire to serve your country a new desire?    One you did not have at 18?    Were you too busy to join the military and serve your country when you were young?   If so, that’s cool.    Just help us to understand why you want to serve your country in Congress now, yet you did not have that same sort of desire ten or twenty years ago.     When you could have done it quite easily.

Are you a lawyer?    (please circle one)     Yes   No

What type of law?

Please explain, in 100 words or less, what you created while being a lawyer.

Are you a member of the NRA?   (please circle one)    Yes   No

Do you own a house and write off the mortgage interest on your taxes    Yes  No

 

 

Do you understand that the mortgage interest deduction is the single largest entitlement program in the United States?    Yes   No

 

 

Please list all the “real” jobs you have held.    (“real” jobs are jobs where you did something that created revenue that contributed to the country’s GDP, hired people, fired people, grew something, made something, educated a child, saved a life, etc)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

What are you planning to do once you finish your two terms as a Congressperson?

Long Form Answers:   Please Complete 3 of the 4 Tasks

From January, 2015 on, all members of Congress must complete the tasks listed below and write the lessons from these tasks.      Should you not wish to partake in any of these tasks, no harm…no foul.   Stay in your current job.     If you would like to serve your electorate, you’re going to need to experience some “life” things.   Showing up for a $500 per plate dinner with your significant other no longer qualifies as experiencing “life” things.

1.     Please go work in a restaurant or a suitable service industry equivalent for ninety days.    Submit your pay stubs, along with a written report detailing what you learned during this experience.

2.   Please go perform manual labor (concrete, asphalt, roofing, etc) for a minimum of sixty days.   Submit your paystubs along with a written report detailing what you built/made.   How did that make you feel?      How tired were you when you got home?       What friends did you make during your sixty days?   Did you hang out with them after work?   Please tell us about them and their families.

3.  Volunteer at one of the following locations for a minimum of fifty days out of two hundred consecutive days.      Submit a written report that includes biographies of at least fifteen people you helped through your volunteer efforts.    Please include the following in the biography:   person’s name, description of their family, where and how they were raised, how they came to onto challenging times, and what you are going to do to help them in the future.

4.  Submit a ten page (single spaced) report comparing and contrasting the following schools of economic thought:  neoclassical economics (orthodox economics, to some), Austrian school, Chicago school (Friedman), and MIT school (Samuelson).   In your comparison, please explain how the Chicago school’s principles, in application (United States:  1970’s, UK: 1980’s), failed miserably.    Also, in your analysis, please explain several theoretical economic theories that have been proven to be true in the real world (e.g. microloans for women in Africa).

5.  Spend fourteen days at the Marine Corps basic training facility in Camp Lejuene, NC to learn basic safety skills and firearm safety from a professional Marine Corps drill instructor.      Then, spend twenty-one days in a war zone.  One (1) of these days in a war zone must be served in a morgue setting and two (2) of these days in a war zone must be served in a military hospital with amputees.   Write a five page report that includes what you learned about proper firearm safety, as well as the three most horrible things you experienced or saw in the war zone.

6.  Please write your initials next to the number six here, noting your acceptance of the fact that Ayn Rand is a fiction writer……..exactly like Faulkner, Hemingway, and Dr. Seuss.   No more……no less.      If you disagree with this statement, feel free to submit a well researched and throughout treatise on a real life country (other than Somalia) or city (other than Mogadishu) where Ms. Rand’s fictional work holds true.     For extra credit, please note the     For extra, extra credit, please compare and contrast Objectivism with the philosophy of Pastafarianism (from The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster)

7.  Please explain the following in a single page:

1. What has created inflation in the past, both in the U.S. and in other countries?
2. What does “The Fed” do?
3. How can a company like Bank of America show a profit of $4.2B in 2012 and pay $0 in taxes?
4. What three primary forces caused the economic collapse in 2008/2009
5. Please explain the Glass–Steagall Act and what protections it afforded (feel free to use two pages for this)

8.   What makes you different than anyone else running for your seat in Congress?   Only discuss your background, your plans, the way you feel about your constituents, and the unique things you bring to the table.    Stay positive.   Sell us on how you are different.   (five page maximum)

 

 

9.   Please describe a situation where you played well with others (with whom you disagree) as an adult.    How did you differ in your opinion?    How did you come to a mutually beneficial agreement?

All of your writing will be published on your Congressional election page for the electorate to read.     Your submissions will remain on your page for twenty years.    Should you wish to change your answers, simply type “I AM CHANGING MY MIND” next to your previous submission, followed by your current position.     Feel free to discuss why you changed your mind, or do not.   Your choice.    There is nothing wrong with changing your mind.     It’s alllllllll good, as long as you own it.

By submitting this Congressional application and signing on the line below, you agree that you will give up your Congressional seat if you commit any of the infractions listed below:

1. Get in front of a microphone and make disparaging comments about anyone other than the seven individuals listed above
2. Saying something ridiculously stupid.   An example of this would be saying “well, what’s to stop us from setting the minimum wage at a million dollars an hour?”     You are in Congress and not allowed to say ridiculously stupid things like that.    When you say ridiculously stupid things like that, we look silly to the rest of the world.
3. Compare anyone to Hitler or compare anything to Nazi Germany.     Should you choose to compare anyone to Hitler or compare anything to Nazi Germany you will not only lose you place in Congress, you will not be permitted to run again and you will be forcibly moved to Canada.

Print your name here:   __________________________________________

Sign your name here:    ___________________________________________

Date:    ______________________________

 

 

End Congressional application.

 

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