Here’s a whacky idea that may not be totally crazy. This is inspired by the 2014 SOTU brilliantly delivered by my President.
Given that the 435 members of congress are basically unreachable and unmovable and to get anything done with them will continue to cost a fortune through public interest lobbying, let’s bypass them as the President suggests.
Let’s raise money through Move On and a few other public interest organizations and buy 400 plane tickets for the Richest 400, fly them to DC, put them up in a luxury hotel there, bring the best and brightest economists from around the U.S., including Robert Reich and Paul Krugman and run a weekend seminar. Certainly they have the time, if not the inclination.
The host? President Obama. Pitch them on the damage income inequality is doing to our nation and their own well being and further accumulation of wealth. Pitch them on a modest tax increase and higher tax rate for a few years. Then, turn them loose, one on one to the 435 members of Congress. Let them lobby, along with their colleagues Warren Buffet and George Soros, to go into session and schedule that tax increase.
This will be alot cheaper and less frustrating than convincing Boehner and the Republican leadership via conventional means. Whacky? Utterly Crazy? Maybe but what the hell. It actually might work. Republican democracy isn’t working, so direct democracy might.