Dear President-Elect Trump:
Does it strike you as odd that we have to regulate, monitor, and police those whom we elect to Congress and the Presidency? I’m referring to the Federal Elections Commission. Don’t get me wrong—I’m happy that we have such a body to keep the 536 among us, and the thousands more that want to hold elected office, in check.
But, it’s a little off that we call a federal elected office, public service, all the while having to police their efforts at getting elected so that they can serve us. The American founders did create a system of checks and balances among branches of government so that the inherent self-interest that exists in all of us could be collectively regulated among the three branches. But the FEC doesn’t regulate a collective branch of government. It regulates individual Americans who aspire to serve within the executive and legislative branches of government.
The Founders never envisioned an FEC because in that time those who offered themselves for public service understood that it came at personal sacrifice and did not include all the perks that we see today. The FEC is pretty good evidence that what we call public service isn’t public service at all. If it’s any service, it’s self-interested service. And self-interested service is not service that benefits our country.
Public service is volunteering at the local soup kitchen, participating on a local planning and zoning commission, sitting on a small miniature chair while a kindergartner you’ve never met sounds out words like “See Dick run.” No one’s ever thought of a regulatory body to police the actions of that kind of public service. That’s because it is true service and those who offer that type of service strive to benefit the larger society.
Congress allotted $67.5 million this year to make sure that those who want to make our laws, don’t break our laws while they’re trying to either ascend to the throne of government or yet remain there. Breaking that down to the 536 people in the U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and the U.S. Presidency reveals a sobering reality. We spend nearly $126,000 annually per Senate, House, and Presidential seat making sure that our lawmakers obey the law.
Add to that the fact that those who wish to serve us just spent 6.9 billion dollars collectively in this election cycle in their attempts to serve America. This isn’t about serving America. It’s about controlling America and seeking positions of privilege.
Sadly, we can’t justifiably point the finger at the 536 that make it to office as the only culprits. More accurately, we ought to point the finger both at them and at ourselves. We are those who collectively spent 6.9 billion dollars. We elected people who need policing. We did it because we’re more self-interested than selfless. Utah is concerned with Utah; Florida with Florida, and so on. Each of us chooses the lobby or cause that best seems to represent us, and we join in the fight to control the country to the exclusion of the rest.
Every election is an escalation of the political control arms race. This year we spent $6.9 billion. In 2012, we spent $6.2 billion; 2008, $5.2 billion; 2004, $4.1 billion; 2000, $3.0 billion.
Ultimately, the cost of political control will not be measured in dollars, but in the inestimable costs that will result from a people that care more about themselves than they do about anyone else.
Indeed, we need a national intervention. But there can be no national intervention without millions of individual self-interventions. Who will lead it?
Here’s hoping that you will.
Sincerely,
David O. Leavitt
