So tonight I ask you to just stop taking the lobbyists’ perks, just stop.
We don’t have to wait for legislation to pass to send a strong signal to the American people that things are really changing. But I also hope you will send me the strongest possible lobby reform bill, and I’ll sign that, too. We should require lobbyists to tell the people for whom they work what they’re spending, what they want. We should also curb the role of big money in elections by capping the cost of campaigns and limiting the influence of PAC’s.
And as I have said for three years, we should work to open the air waves so that they can be an instrument of democracy not a weapon of destruction by giving free TV time to candidates for public office.
When the last Congress killed political reform last year, it was reported in the press that the lobbyists actually stood in the halls of this sacred building and cheered. This year, let’s give the folks at home something to cheer about.
More important, I think we all agree that we have to change the way the Government works. Let’s make it smaller, less costly and smarter. Leaner not meaner.
I just told the Speaker the equal time doctrine’s alive and well.
The Role Of Government
The New Covenant approach to governing is as different from the old bureaucratic way as the computer is from the manual typewriter. The old way of governing around here protected organized interests; we should look out for the interests of ordinary people. The old way divided us by interests, constituency or class; the New Covenant way should unite us behind a common vision of what’s best for our country.
The old way dispensed services through large, top-down, inflexible bureaucracies. The New Covenant way should shift these resources and decision making from bureaucrats to citizens, injecting choice and competition and individual responsibility into national policy.
The old way of governing around here actually seemed to reward failure. The New Covenant way should have built-in incentives to reward success.