My idea to solve the problem of money in politics

Here is my open letter to Jakob Lodwick, the brilliant and recently freed founder of Vimeo and tech brains behind Connected Ventures (collegehumor.com, bustedtees.com).

Jakob,

I’m always coming up with new ideas for sites, but have little time to implement them. As you’re considering ideas, here’s a recent one I’d love to work on with you:

Removing money from politics by creating a political site that would seek to pool small donations from across the country to fully finance races in the House and Senate.

The idea being that we raise a huge amount of public money and make an offer to congressmen: we will offer to fully pay for your campaigns (all races, all competitors) if you agree to take no other money and refuse any gifts from lobbyists (going beyond even the new restrictions soon to be imposed next year).

In return? They agree simply to vote their consciences. I do not suggest having a political platform to the site.

I don’t think it makes sense to just become another lobbying group, but — by financing races fully — to REMOVE money from the political equation thereby neutering the unions, political action committees, corporations and their lobbyists.

Let politicians, most of whom started out with good intentions, return to judging the issues impartially and voting in Congress accordingly.

It would be incredibly easy to get press for this initiative. I believe many Americans would participate. Even though the results might not perfectly satisfy everyone’s political opinions, we could wipe some of the dirtier practices from Washington. The issue is the technology and organization behind the platform, which is where I am deficient and you are proficient.

I’m not certain of the revenue considerations, but there are several possibilities: merchandise sales (t-shirts, etc.) or a small percentage fee on donations that could be used to finance the site.

Josh Friedlander
AmericanMadness.com