...I'd enact my own lobbying reform bill, because I certainly don't trust the elected representatives who are being paid off now by lobbyists to have anyone's interests but their own at heart. The new 2006 Suemac Campaign Finance Reform and Lobbying Reform Bill provisions would include:

* No contribution of any kind more than $100. And only one per....per individual, per corporation, per family.
* Any corporation caught donating to politicians or candidates would be forced to pay an immediate "politics tax" of 10% of the CEO's salary. Each additional fine is another 10% of the CEO's salary.
* No Congressman can work as a lobbyist for a minimum of 10 years after leaving office.
* Once hired as a lobbyist, every lobbyist must ride around D.C. on a tricycle so he/she can be identified easily. Parking? You're on your own, like everyone else.
* No meals, lunches, dinners, gifts worth more than $25 can be given to any elected officeholder.. No sports, no golf, no titty bars, no cars, no taxi cab rides, no NOTHING.
* Congress is hereby limited to being in session no more than 6 months of the year. Any more than that, and they're dangerous.
* Every Congressperson's salary is $40,000 a year. And they have to pay for health insurance like every other person in America. And dental insurance. And contribute to their own 401-K. And parking. And housing. And car insurance. And tuition.
* If there are ANY doubts about any donation or contribution or act that could be construed as fishy, the final determination will be made by: a public school teacher from Ohio, a rancher from Montana, a kindergartender from Maine and a truck-stop waitress from Florida. THEM's the most ethical, hard-working, normal people I can think of, and that's what lobbying reform needs: hard-working NORMAL people deciding what's proper and what's not.

....I would tell the CIA to quit launching air strikes against other countries just because it thinks it can.

...I would get a serious case of the willies if I found out that I'd received money from a guy who's now a pleaded-guilty lobbyist for fraud, corruption and tax evasion. Giving the money he gave ME to a charity is the least I would do.

First, I'd publicly apologize to my entire nation that I had associated with such scumbags. Secondly, I'd publicly resign (see? I knew there was a way to get me out of office!) for malfeasance or misfeasance or just being a big public jerk about fund-raising and campaigning. And I'd ask every member of Congress to join me so the entire country could start from scratch with real people sitting in those seats in the House and Senate.

Adn this time, NO lawyers are allowed to run for public office. Or self-made millionaires. Or Ross Perot. Only public school teachers. And social workers. And people who believe in energy independence and new ideas. And a few astrologers, just to throw sh** in the game and keep things interesting. And some artists, becuase they always have interesting ideas. And at least 15 people who lost their homes/jobs/pets to hurricane Katrina this year and another 15 who either served in Iraq in the military or lost family members there, because you know they've got to have hearts of gold...and still be a little p-o'd about what happened...and still isn't happening.

And some truck drivers and people who work in nursing homes and child-care centers, and a doctor who works in a public health clinic somewhere. Because we really need to fix the energy crisis and the health-care crisis and bring our soldiers home from Iraq.

And THAT, my friend, is just the start.

The new government slogan: "We tolerate everybody. We're anti-war. And we abhor liars."