I Support Outlawing Political Corruption!

It is illegal to pay a citizen for his or her vote in an election. Makes sense, right? We don't want millionaires just buying their offices, do we?

Then, why is it totally kosher for a special interest group to pay a politician for his or her vote on a bill? Of course, there's no explicit "deal" there, but the understanding is clear. If such an implicit agreement were made for a citizen's vote, however, both the campaign and the citizen would be prosecuted.

Both our political parties do this obviously, but on top of that, this is also what Republicans do for rich people via unnecessary tax cuts.

Instead of letting the citizens profit off their votes, we let lobbyists and the rich profit off their invested contributions. Of course, that's basically what most U.S. voters are trying to do, but there's a big difference: the corporations are successful in this effort, and in amounts many times greater than the citizens are even hoping for themselves.

An entertaining video from The Onion cleverly illustrates this everted system which seems to be incidental, but is actually a carefully designed arrangement by the powers that be:

If we don't want our politicians to be corrupt, making corruption illegal might be a good first step in that direction. Of course, the only people who could ever do that are the people who would never do it.