Bad Politicians (by Tim Cox)

Half of all Americans believe most members of Congress are corrupt… and more than a third think their own representative is crooked, according to a 2006 CNN poll. An August, 2007 Gallup poll showed that only 18% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing—I’m surprised the number isn’t 1.8%. The problem reaches deep into both parties.

Consider the transgressions of some of our recently departed or departing congressmen. Mark Foley (R-FL) was found to have a fetish for teenage pages. James Traficant (D-OH) was convicted of bribery, tax evasion and fraud. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) was sentenced to 8 years for accepting over $2.4 million in bribes. William J. Jefferson (D-LA) was caught with $90,000 in cash “bribe money” hidden in his freezer, and has allegedly accepted much more. He has also been charged in a global campaign to solicit bribes, obstruct justice and engage in racketeering. His brother-in-law, Alan Green, a former state judge, was convicted of mail fraud in a bail bond corruption case in suburban New Orleans.

Year after year, career politicians like Rostenkowski (D-IL) and Delay (R-TX) only strengthen our negative attitude. Current House members seemingly wait in line, determined to degrade our trust even further. Bill Frist (R-TE) is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for his sale of HCA Inc. stock, and has been accused of violating federal campaign finance laws. Harold Rogers (R-KY) is accused of repeatedly steering government contracts to companies in his district (e.g. NucSafe, Accenture, and Identification Card Industry), in one case securing a job for his son. Roy Blunt (R-MO) has been accused of trying to insert provisions into bills that would have benefited a client of his lobbyist son and the employer of his lobbyist girlfriend, who is now his wife. Richard Pombo (R-CA) reportedly paid his wife and brother $357,325 in campaign funds over the last four years. He also supported the wind-power industry before the Department of Interior without disclosing that his parents received hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties from wind-power turbines on their ranch.

Alcee Hastings (D-FL) was impeached and removed from his federal judgeship in 1989 for conspiring to take a $150,000 bribe and give light sentences to two convicted swindlers. He now serves us in the House, with new accusations being made. Maxine Waters (D-CA) has been accused of funneling more than $1 million to family members through illicit deals. Allan Mollohan (D-WV) is accused of directing $250 million via earmarks to five nonprofit organizations that he created and are staffed by his friends. The Department of Justice is investigating. David Scott’s (D-GA) committee has reportedly disbursed $715,330 to his family, business, and himself. He is facing tax evasion charges and has been accused of misusing official resources for political campaign activity.

Charles Taylor (R-NC) is under scrutiny concerning a savings and loan he is involved with in his home state, as well as his personal business interests in Russia. Bob Ney (R-OH), John Doolittle (R-CA) and Tom Feeney (R-FL) have been linked to the Abramoff scandal and accused of other questionable activities; Doolittle for his ties to a convicted military contractor and his wife’s fundraising efforts, and Feeney for a real estate deal and vote-rigging software. Pete Sessions (R-TX), the former SBC executive who owns $500,000 in SBC stock options and received more than $75,000 from SBC and its employees, is under fire for agreeing to sponsor legislation that benefitted “nobody in this country except for the telecom and cable giants.” Jerry Lewis (R-CA) could be the next indicted Congressman given his relationship with lobbyist/friend Bill Lowery. Rolling Stone said, “Lowery and his clients made more than $480,000 in contributions to Lewis… Lowery's firm, in turn, tripled its revenue to $5 million—and his clients pocketed hundreds of millions in federal pork projects...” They even describe how past employees and even their wives have been hired by Lowery’s firm.

Even the leaders of both parties diminish our trust. John Murtha (D-PA), who was narrowly defeated as House Majority Leader, along with Jim Moran (D-VA) and Peter Visclosky (D-IN), have reportedly accepted $1,333,074 in campaign contributions from the PMA Group. PMA, a firm founded by a former Murtha worker, is believed to have walked away with $100.5 million in defense earmarks for their clients. Controversy is not new to Murtha; he was linked, but not indicted, in the 1980 Abscam scandal, which resulted in the convictions of a senator and six congressmen. He is currently facing ethics violations stemming from threats to block earmarks of other members for political purposes.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has not been accused of criminal behavior, but her efforts to undermine U.S. foreign policy and the President have struck a nerve with Republicans. First, she visited Syria, giving legitimacy to Bashar al-Assad and his systematic murder of pro-Western Lebanese members of parliament. Then she was accused of aiding and abetting opponents of a very important free-trade agreement with the United States by sending a letter to Costa Rica's ambassador just nine days before a national referendum. Those efforts earned the ire of her critics, but her latest effort, an attempt to push a resolution denouncing Armenian genocide that occurred over 90 years ago as a way to cut off supplies for our troops, has lowered her stock with many in her own party. Her actions are not illegal, but is it any wonder our representatives are held in such low esteem?

Dennis Hastert (R-IL), House Minority Leader, despicably ignored the behavior of Foley and now is involved in a highly questionable real estate deal close to the Prairie Parkway, which of course he helped obtain funding for. Long-time Representative Don Young (R-AK), chief architect of the “Bridge to Nowhere” and master of earmarks, is reportedly involved in four separate federal investigations.

Rick Renzi (R-AZ) has stepped down from the House Intelligence Committee after his wife’s insurance agency was raided by the FBI and has just been handed a 35-count indictment that charges the congressman with wire fraud, extortion, money laundering and looting $400,000 from the trust account of a Renzi family business. Joe Baca (D-CA) is in hot water for allegedly calling Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez a whore. Bob Filner (D-CA) has been charged for allegedly pushing an airline employee. Jerry Weller (R-IL) will not seek reelection while under increasing pressure for alleged ethics violations.

I started this article intending to create a list of our worst ten representatives, but where do you start? We seem to have a new indictment or resignation before the proverbial ink has a chance to dry. Is it time to start over?

If we had a chance to hit the reset button and begin anew, would we? If we could elect an entirely new set of representatives, just as we did when our country was first formed, would we be better off? Most believe we would. Is it time to put our energy behind GOOOH (pronounced go), the non-partisan plan to evict all 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and replace them with everyday Americans? I think it is.

Liberal or Conservative? (by Tim Cox)

Is Tim Cox a liberal or a conservative? It's a common question, and I've actually been called both, but the answer is not a simple one.

Many of my views will become very clear if you read my book, Get Out Of Our House: Revolution! But, the most important point to this question is that my views do not matter. Each person will define their own platform by the way they answer the questionnaire, and each pool of ten will determine which person and whose answers can best represent that pool. What I or any other person in America believe, beside the ten people in each pool, is completely irrelevant.

I believe our founders intended exactly this when they created the House of Representatives. Their stated objective was to allow the people of each district choose a single person who could represent their views when laws were being debated.

To get back to the question, which I am about to answer, please recognize that I am not asking anyone to support my beliefs, nor am I attempting to change yours. To those who disagree with me personally on any issue, but are not able to understand that our differing views are irrelevant, this system is not for you.

I am generally conservative and have voted for Republicans more than I have voted for Democrats, but I would never consider myself a Republican. I believe the concept of two parties is fundamentally flawed, and that views vary by issue not by candidate or party.

Let me give a few examples. I favor the smallest government and fewest regulations possible. I believe strongly in the right to bear arms. I am a Christian and believe we have the right to say a prayer before a football game or hang the Ten Commandments on any wall we choose. I favor lower tax rates. I do not want open borders. I believe school vouchers and a completely private school system would be better than a government controlled education system. I despise the Endangered Species Act and the way it is manipulated to prevent growth and progress. My core belief is that government tends to mess up just about everything it gets involved with. Does that make me a conservative or a Republican? Perhaps, but consider my liberal side.

I support use of the birth control pill, which are abortifacients, and therefore by definition must say I support abortion for the first couple of months. I believe we should end our dependence on foreign oil and invest significantly more than we do on cleaner fuels and the environment. I believe we should spend more on welfare and help teenage unwed mothers get their life in order, though I don't like the way it is handled by the government today. I believe we should limit the amount of money a person can inherit in a lifetime to $11.5 million, and that the rest of a billionaire's estate should be returned to their favorite charity or the government at time of death - large inheritances have led to an out-of-control aristocracy in America. While I favor having a strong military, I do not believe we should spend more money on it than the rest of the world combined. I do not think it our duty to police the world or to nation-build like we are doing in Iraq; that money is needed in America. I support the government providing health care vouchers to all Americans, but not running the health care system.

There are many other issues. On some I lean left and others right, but I think you can agree that I do not fall into either the Republican or the Democratic camp. I further believe that most of you are the same way. One of the premises of GOOOH is that you must consider each issue individually, and if you can get enough people to define their own platform, those who best represent the views of their district will bubble to the top of the system, assuming they have the communication, interpersonal, leadership and other skills they need. In issues where the chosen person's views do not align with the desires of his district, he can use the Override capability to change his answer to support the desires of the people he represents.

At the risk of being redundant, let me point out one last time that my personal views are not relevant in the system. I have inherent trust in the goodness of mankind, and believe by building an unbiased process the right people will be sent to Washington to represent we the people.

The Decline of America (Tim Cox)

We live in the greatest country in the world, but if anyone questions that our nation is in decline they are simply ignoring the facts. The good news is that we have the most industrious and entrepreneurial people in the world and the greatest government framework ever conceived. If we can simply get the politicians out of the way, we have an outstanding chance to recover.

However, if we allow politicians to continue promising handouts we cannot afford, running up debts we cannot pay, and increasing the scope of government year after year, we may very well pass the tipping point, and soon.

Consider the following statistics about our great nation:
• Thirty-four percent of all children are born to unwed mothers
• Thirty-seven million people live in poverty
• Sixteen percent of the population depends on welfare
• Over 5.6 million people are in our penal system
• Over half of high school seniors admit to having used illegal drugs
• Almost 30 percent of our children fail to complete the 12th grade
• Health care costs account for 15 percent of a family’s income, excluding the 44 million Americans who do not have health care.
• We have a $9.2 trillion deficit that increases by more than $1.5 billion each day
• Over 40 percent of the population pays no income tax
• A family that makes $100,000 a year sends over $50,000 of their earnings to the government via income, payroll, property, sales, gasoline and other taxes; mounting obligations ensure they will be forced to pay even more in the future
• Our dependence on the radical Middle East is growing, with 50-70% of our oil coming from that region
• Over 20 million Americans now have asthma, an ailment largely attributed to polluted air
• As many as 10,000 illegal immigrants are crossing our borders on any given day

If we are the greatest country in the world, shouldn't we do better? How are our children going to pay for the debts OUR GENERATION is accumulating. Can you sleep at night knowing what we are doing to their future? I cannot.

When our country was formed, Thomas Paine said, "But to expend millions … is unworthy the charge, and is using posterity with the utmost cruelty; because it is leaving them the great work to do, and a debt upon their backs from which they derive no advantage. Such a thought is unworthy a man of honor, and is the true characteristic of a narrow heart and a peddling politician."

Yet our generation is spending $1.5 billion more each day than we are willing to pay in. The debt is in the TRILLIONS! Do we really need to spend more money on our military than the rest of the world combined? Do we really need to retire at age 67, so our children can pay for our leisure? Do we really need to have the biggest government in the world, in this, the land of limited government?

Do we really expect politicians will ever behave any different than they do today? Is it any surprise they will grandstand about steroid use in baseball while thirty-seven million people are living in poverty? Is it any surprise they will vociferously debate what the minimum wage should be while almost thirty percent of our kids are dropping out of high school? There is a reason that ninety percent of us are dissatisfied with politicians but ninety-five percent of them get re-elected: the system for selecting representatives is broken, rigged, or both.

If we continue to elect career politicians, I believe the fate of our nation is sealed. We must do something; changing the management team is the best place to start. GOOOH will allow us to put true representatives of the people in office, men and women who will control spending and address the issues that must be addressed. Patriots who will put their country ahead of their career, their party, and the special interest groups that fund them.

I hope you will consider the merits of GOOOH, and then tell every person you can to do the same.

Is GOOOH Serious (Tim Cox)

When I first tell someone that we intend to replace all 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, the initial response is usually laughter, disbelief or a combination of the two. Not everyone is laughing at me, though I'm sure a few are, most simply do not believe that such a monumental change is even remotely possible. It sounds so far fetched at first mention that it simply does not seem feasible.

But innovation is interesting. By definition, truly innovative ideas always seem impossible, or at least improbable, initially. When the Wright Brothers set out to fly, imagine how many people questioned what they were doing? When Bill Gates bought that operating system from IBM, do you think a few people failed to see the possibilities? When Michael Dell decided to cut out the middle man do you think a few of those 40 or so companies that are now out of business wish they would have taken the concept more seriously? What about electricity, the telephone, or even something as Kindergarten simple as a Styrofoam "noodle" used by swimmers?

New ideas and innovative plans change the world every day. If there is a need and a practical solution, people will adopt with open arms. That is why I am so serious about GOOOH. There is a compelling need, and the solution is so simple, that I am certain the people of our country will rally around this idea as they learn about it. Sure, there will always be a few that label what we are doing negatively, but I find in almost every instance the naysayers either have a stake in the current system, have a link with the current people in the system, or are simply naysayers by nature.

I understand the system is not perfect, and recognize I could have taken the politically correct and much simpler path of not excluding any person or insisting on term limits, but I had to start with what I truly believed in. The system has been designed so that the members of GOOOH can change the screening criteria and the questions, and in fact they have already done so in several instances, but I felt it was important that I start with what I felt, in my heart, was the best way to bring about not just change, but the right change.

I hope you will help perfect this system as well as communicate to every American patriot you know that we now have a viable alternative to career politicians. We can and will change what is going on in Washington. We can and will return control of our government to the people. We can and will identify imminently qualified business men and women who will go to Washington and do the work that must be done. Yes, I am absolutely serious.

If you are serious about change, you will join GOOOH and then tell every person in American to do the same. The only thing that can prevent success is if the people choose not to participate. We hope you will help spread the word so the rest of our countrymen can join our cause.