"Ordinary" Citizens Challenge Government Corruption
There is nothing as invigorating as seeing democracy in action. Western New Yorkers are actually working to change the system that has corrupted and destroyed a once-great city. The last time I wrote about politics, I wrote about the excitement the citizens felt when they convinced their legislators not to raise the sales tax in our county. Well there has been progress in Buffalo¡¦s citizenry battling its legislator. We in Buffalo and the surrounding area are now working to remove the corrupted politicians who have forgotten what true representative government is about.
Citizens have come together to turn our legislators into regular citizens again. Two citizen groups, Primary Challenge (PrimaryChallenge.org) and Free Buffalo (FreeBuffalo.org) are uniting citizen Democrats and citizen Republicans in an effort to bring government back to the people. The goals these groups are focusing on are simple in idea, and crucial in importance. They want to shrink the size of government, they insist that government is too far removed from the people, and make government friendly to those who are not party insiders. Simple enough, but a pretty large task when you consider that 90% of incumbents are reelected. Last year, every New York State legislator up for reelection was reelected despite the fact we have not seen a budget returned on time in over 2 decades! These groups are determined to break the circle of nepotism that has corrupted the system.
Since the sales tax failed, there has been a tidal wave of information on corruption in the legislature. As a citizen of this great community, it is sad to see how our elected officials do not see the problem. These are only a few of the problems:
„X The head of the County Legislature took a $500 campaign donation from a business in Louisiana and was rewarded with a $3 million contract.
„X The bill was passed as ¡§Amendment E¡¨ and that was all anyone knew about the bill. When a legislator asked what it was, the legislator who proposed the amendment said ¡§It¡¦s nothing¡¨.
„X When the county threatened the danger of not passing the tax, they said that 3,000 people were going to be out of work. It turns out that it is less than 700 people. This is a county that has 90,000 government employees with total government subsidies of $17.3 BILLION PER YEAR!
„X The legislators who voted against the sales tax increase have had their staffs cut to 1 part time staffer, while those who backed the bump still have full staffs.
This county has turned into a one party town filled with collusion and corruption that would make Boss Tweed proud. What is worse is that the citizens have not been invited to the party. All of this is changing. We are running citizens against our incumbents and the citizens will be victorious.
I know that Buffalo is not the only town in America that has stories of corruption and mismanagement. It is possible to battle your government, we are. If you live in or near Buffalo, or the county of Erie, your help is welcome. If you do not, throwing a political revolution in your own town should not be ignored. We are a country that was created by citizens fed up with the status quo. When did we get so content? Is everything going so wonderfully as to not need change? I didn¡¦t think so. I am putting my actions where my keyboard is- I am one of the citizens fighting in my legislator¡¦s primary. Who is going to join me? Bring the government back to the citizens, the line continues behind me and there is plenty of room for more!