Dollars For Votes? A Modest Proposal!

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-state-fund30-2009dec30,0,3510174.story
Plan to sell piece of State Compensation Insurance Fund collapses

Our incompetent California State government is at it again.

Rather than looking for long term cuts to spending, they continue to look for short term boosts of income.

The State of California has sold so many bonds, that their bond rating is going down. If the bond rating gets much lower, the State of California might be the first state to turn their bonds into junk bonds, making them sell for so much less than face value that they would be better off going to loan sharks for cash.

Since selling California bonds has become so unattractive, another way for the state to generate short term income, and long term losses, is sell any assets that have not already been mortgaged. Even though the government seems to hate private business, and does everything they can to prevent business from thriving in this state, they are now willing to sell whatever part of the government they can to private business.

The State if California recently tried to sell off part of the State Compensation Insurance Fund. Unfortunately for them, an honest politician (normally a contradiction in terms) sued the state to prevent this.

If the state sells assets, some part of this money is supposed to flow into the state treasury. When a politician accepts bribes to perform illegal activities, no part of that money goes into the state treasury. So wouldn't it be more profitable to sell politicians? The typical politician is not worth much. And the typical politician can be sold many times to different people for different causes.

Which gives me an idea.

As long as the State of California is considering selling assets they hold in sacred trust for the residents, maybe they can find something else of value to sell? How about selling political offices? Most politicians are corrupt, so why not let the state get a little of the money that the politicians normally grab for themselves?

Or how about selling votes? Votes for dollars? As long as there are reporting requirements for who is paying for the votes, we might actually find out what companies and individuals want what laws passed. Which would finally get us some kind of honesty out of the legislature.

If we find some day that California does sell votes for money, don't blame me. I am sure the politicians could have figure this out on their own.