The easiest way to get money out of politics is to get money out of politics. The government should cut back its goals, and tax and spend less.

Anything else would just add layers on top of a convoluted system.

McCain-Feingold is a perfect example of a piece of legislation that did nothing in response to the money in politics.

As long as there is $3T for the federal government to spend, there will be business trying to get a piece of it.

I love Lessig, but I'm amazed he can't see the elephant in the room.

Vote Ron Paul?

Not to add to the Paulspam on the 'net, but if he was elected it really would make things a hundredfold easier. :-(

It would help, but more would need to happen. The environment that allowed Paul to win might be enough.

At this point, I have more confidence in my ability to start a new country than a democracy system's ability to get over the problems the US faces.

Since Presidents have Congress on such a tight leash and all...

A line item veto of most pork would effectively kill it.

The problems with line item vetos is that a President would most likely not have the time or inclination to actually use it to deal with the pork, but he would use it to effectively have final edit privileges on all laws, at which point, he is both the Legislative and Executive branches at once.

I think an easier solution is to impose a maximum length on non-budget bills and make them open for public review for a minimum of 90 days after final edit and before voting. Also enforce a separation in bills. Those that contain anything that involve appropriations must not include unrelated appropriations. That way you don't have missile programs sneaking into farm bills, steel subsidies sneaking into tax reforms, and bridges sneaking into education acts.

> The problems with line item vetos is that a President would most likely not have the time or inclination to actually use it to deal with the pork, but he would use it to effectively have final edit privileges on all laws, at which point, he is both the Legislative and Executive branches at once.

Has that happened in the states that have line item veto? If not, why would it be different at the federal level? If so, could some tweaks fix the problem?

Those all sound great. If you're a libertarian and want to get depressed, real the Cato Handbook for Congress. It's a list a mile long of excellent ideas that are unlikely to happen.

There was a good segment on earmarks recently on Bill Moyers Journal. I found it online here:

EXPOSÉ on the JOURNAL: Mr. Heath Goes to Washington http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02222008/watch.html

"The broadcast profiles SEATTLE TIMES reporters on the trail of how members of Congress have awarded federal dollars for questionable purposes to companies in local Congressional districts—often to companies whose executives, employees or PACs have made campaign contributions to their legislators."

The show describes the amount of work the reporters had to do just to decode the various earmarks in the DoD appropriations bill. For example, $4m was earmarked for "NG4BW," and the paper had to locate additional documentation--and it's not conveniently attached to the bill--just to determine what this actually represented.

Those with the gold make the rules. So it was, and so it ever shall be.