A solution stares us in the face.

It’s no secret that corruption in politics is on the minds of millions. This state is rife with it, and many others are as well. Big cities ooze corruption. Washington is the Vatican of pay-for-play.

Ah, but what to do about it? A lot of people offer answers that are not solutions — and never will be.

Limit money in politics, they tell us. Limit who can give how much to which candidates. Right. Has this ever worked? We have tried it many times. It always flops.

Money is like water flowing down the mountain. You can divert it. You can dam it for a while. But no matter what you do, you can forget about stopping it.

Elect better candidates, they tell us. Candidates with integrity, candidates who are honest. So tell us how “we” are going to do this.

“We” are offered candidates by the party machines. The machines are corrupt. The system is corrupt. The people who run it believe there is nothing wrong with it.

Nothing wrong with $35,000 for dinner with a big politician. Nothing wrong with fat contributions — in return for special treatment. As far as selecting more honest candidates, it’s the end of the story.

Nothing would be a perfect solution. But consider this idea. And consider that it is kryptonite to most politicians. That ought to be a clue as to how much of a solution it might be.

Term limits.
To machine politicians, these are the two most dangerous words in the language. Because they remove the very reason for so much of the corruption. The very reason being the need for money to run the next campaign.

What if there is no next campaign for many politicians? What if politicians could only run, say, one or two campaigns? And then they would be history.

Voila, no need for the big bucks for the campaign coffers. No need to kiss the hem of special interests — especially those who threaten to work against them next campaign.

Politicians despise the two words, term limits. Because they threaten their careers. Politics is in their blood. They spend all or most of their working years in and around politics. Isn’t that the problem? They have rigged the system to help them stay in power. Part of their rigging is their corrupt money raising. It is the biggest part.

Get rid of the need to run the next campaign. Do that, and you get rid of the need for big money for campaigns. Or at least a lot of the need.

Meanwhile, on the plus side, you open the door for more citizen candidates. For non-politicians. Or at least for non-career politicians. A lot of good and accomplished people would come forward. To serve relatively short spells. Many would bring good ideas. And they would certainly be more in touch with voters. And would not be drugged by the fetid air within the bubbles of Washington, D.C. and Albany, N.Y.

But isn’t it important to have politicians in place who have many years of experience? In foreign affairs. Or in budget issues. Yes, when Washington or Albany is packed with guys who created the system. No, when it is not.

Term limits would alter the system — to burn up less money than today’s system does. Manure attracts flies. Money attracts corruption. Reduce the money and you will reduce the corruption.

Other solutions for the corruption in politics are wishful thinking. Maybe term limits are as well, because politicians would fight it.

That is probably the best recommendation for term limits. Career politicians would rather nibble rat poison.

From Tom…as in Morgan.

Tom Morgan writes about political, financial and other subjects from his home near Oneonta. Several upstate radio stations carry his daily commentary, Tom Morgan’s Money Talk. Contact him at tomasinmorgan.com

I had the good fortune [recently] to spend some time in Washington, D.C. with about a dozen former members of Congress. As you’d expect, we got to talking about the current Congress. Very quickly it turned out that the same question was troubling all of us: Why is it held in such low public esteem?

We represented both parties and a variety of eras, and had a range of experience under our belts. But we all found ourselves chagrined by what we’ve been witnessing. You have to understand that most former members of Congress believe deeply in the value of the institution for American representative government. We might take opposite sides of particular policy debates, but on one point we all agree: we want the institution itself to succeed and thrive. These days, it’s doing neither.

For starters, we were hard-pressed to come up with any real accomplishments for the year. Congress did pass a revision to the “No Child Left Behind” law and a controversial expansion of cyber-surveillance capabilities, which it slipped into a must-pass budget bill. It also took the entirely uncontroversial step of broadening sanctions on North Korea. But that’s pretty much it. In the country at large, people are fretting about everything from control of our borders to stagnant wages and the spread of ISIS. On Capitol Hill, no one seems particularly concerned.

Worse, members show little interest in making Congress more productive. Our little group all remembered times when we or our colleagues pushed reform efforts to make the institution work better — and were struck that current members aren’t doing so. Most Americans belong to some group or another that’s trying to accomplish change for the better and improve itself at the same time. Why should Congress be an outlier? Yet it is.

None of us [former members at the gathering] said we believed this is irreversible. We are all convinced that strong leadership in Congress could make an immense difference. In the past, effective legislators on both sides of the aisle — as committee chairs and as caucus leaders — have left behind them a legacy of great accomplishment.

I won’t waste your time with a list of them, because the point is simple: it may be a different time and legislative environment from 50 years ago, but strong leadership can make Congress work. On that point, my former colleagues and I — Republicans and Democrats — found ourselves in full agreement.

Lee Hamilton is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at the IU School of Global and International Studies, and professor of practice at the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years, representing a district in south central Indiana.