{"id":24887,"date":"2011-12-27T08:43:43","date_gmt":"2011-12-27T15:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/27\/the-1-we-also-keep-electing-them-to-office.html"},"modified":"2011-12-27T09:37:07","modified_gmt":"2011-12-27T16:37:07","slug":"the-1-we-also-keep-electing-them-to-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/27\/the-1-we-also-keep-electing-them-to-office.html","title":{"rendered":"The 1%? We also keep electing them to office"},"content":{"rendered":"

Increasingly, the net worth of congressional representatives keeps going up, far faster than that of the general population. Some comes from insider trading and the like. Some comes from the parties themselves become increasingly again their own country club at the upper candidate-selecting \/ endorsing \/ supporting levels. A lot comes from more and more needing to have a solid foundation of wealth from which to run on.<\/p>\n

But all of it begs the issue to what extent someone with a net worth in the seven, eight, or nine figures can represent their constituents' economic interests, or even understand them.<\/p>\n

Nor, it's necessary to note, is this a partisan thing. The net worth of Dems in Congress has gone up substantially and is now roughly on par with the GOP (John Kerry at the top is certainly not hurting those figures).<\/p>\n

Obviously wealth shouldn't automatically disqualify someone from office, nor does it automatically mean corruption or elite disinterest and disdain for the "99%". But it is worrisome, and a sign of increased drift from even the pretense of a "citizen legislator." #ddtb<\/p>\n

Reshared post from +Bob Shrader<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Embedded Link<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGrowing wealth widens distance between lawmakers and constituents<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBetween 1984 and 2009, the median net worth of a member of the House more than doubled, according to a Post analysis.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Increasingly, the net worth of congressional representatives keeps going up, far faster than that of the general population. Some comes from insider trading and the like. Some comes from the parties themselves become increasingly again their own country club at the upper candidate-selecting \/ endorsing \/ supporting levels. A lot comes from more and more … Continue reading “The 1%? We also keep electing them to office”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,9],"tags":[107],"class_list":["post-24887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-politics-law","tag-ddtb"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":47964,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/11\/on-politicians-as-people-and-as-demons.html","url_meta":{"origin":24887,"position":0},"title":"On politicians as people and as demons","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 11-Nov-14 10:57pm","format":false,"excerpt":"In our era of political demonization, there are only two alternatives: someone is on Our Side, and therefore is wise, witty, funny, and admirable -- or else someone is on Their Side, and therefore is foolish, clumsy, annoying, and reprehensible.Which is clearly a false dichotomy, because not only is there\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":47922,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/11\/ted-cruz-is-a-dolt-obamacare-for-the-internet-edition.html","url_meta":{"origin":24887,"position":1},"title":"Ted Cruz Is A Dolt (Obamacare for the Internet Edition)","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 11-Nov-14 6:37am","format":false,"excerpt":"Ted, do you actually pay attention to what comes out of your mouth (or in this case, your fingers (or, more likely in this case, your nerdy intern Brandon who runs your Twitter account for you's fingers))?I'm sure that someone, somewhere (possibly your generous Comcast donors, perhaps obvious anagram Reince\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14515,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/04\/11\/well-no-death-but-taxes.html","url_meta":{"origin":24887,"position":2},"title":"Well, no death, but taxes","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 11-Apr-09 3:55pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Owed a mid-low four figure number to Uncle Sam, getting back about half that from Uncle Bill, so overall not bad.\u00a0 TurboTax continues to prove itself more than worth the investment.\u00a0 As do the paper tray where I dump everything tax-related that comes in all year, PayTrust which I do\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Personal"","block_context":{"text":"Personal","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2719,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/10\/01\/dagnabbit.html","url_meta":{"origin":24887,"position":3},"title":"Dagnabbit","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 1-Oct-02 7:43am","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the classic problems that any hi-tech couple has is keeping their info in sync. Margie and I both have Palms, and trying to make sure that we have...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18127,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/08\/15\/unblogged-bits-mon-16-aug-10-0001.html","url_meta":{"origin":24887,"position":4},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Mon. 16-Aug-10 0001)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 15-Aug-10 6:01pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... Unemployed Man Reacts To Gingrich\u2019s Accusation That \u2018Welfare\u2019 Is Making Him Lazy: I Paid Into It For 35 Years - The Right's overarching economic theme: \"We got ours; don't you dare think of taking\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7933,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/07\/19\/like_the_colors.html","url_meta":{"origin":24887,"position":5},"title":"Like the colors of your mind …","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 19-Jul-05 1:21pm","format":false,"excerpt":"What price cheap storage and easy access to info? Could it be, as Kottke suggests ... a bad memory? I've been increasingly aware of this phenomenon with my own memory....","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}