Our System is Broken

Our political system is broken and needs to be fixed. Witness the current highway bill: $286.4 billions of earmarks, pork, handouts, give aways, and unconstitutional spending, much of it paybacks for political campaign contributions for our outrageously expensive election system. And raising it absorbs a huge amount of the politicians' time and the taxpayers' money! Is there any way to break this cycle of buying and selling votes? I believe there is. I believe we could return to our roots as a republic by the judicious injection of one word, "anonymous." I would require that all votes on legislative acts be anonymous. This would allow legislators to vote their consciences without fear of consequences for perhaps the first time in their careers! I would also require that all spending bills of the legislature identify their constitutional authority. I would also require that all political contributions be anonymous; no other restrictions on speech or amounts, just anonymity. Watch the money dry up! People contributing under this rule would be helping their choice of the best person without hope of political or economic (rent-seeking) advantage. This would also allow challengers a better chance of unseating incumbents. And I would require all decisions of the Supreme Court to be anonymous and per curiam, as they were in John Marshal's day. This would soften labeling of judges according to imagined or even invented judicial philosophy and the furious quarreling over which should be represented on the Court. Finally, I w'd allow only tax producers to vote, i.e. people who pay in to government at least as much as they get back in goods and services. "No representation without [net] taxation," and I w'd require every oath of office to include: "First, do no harm!" hm