No Taxation Without Representation – 2025

“No taxation without representation” was a slogan of the Revolution War. The colonists were protesting being taxed without having a representation in the British Parliament. The Colonists opposed the Townshend Acts of 1767 which placed taxes in the form of duties on imported goods. It was a major factor leading up to the Revolutionary War. The Colonists did not believed they should be taxed without representation. When Britain would not meet their demands they felt their only option was to separate from Britain and become their own separate country.

Today our slogan needs to again be “no taxation without representation”. You say we have representation in Congress. No we don’t.

There are some members of Congress who are loyal to their districts, but many if not the vast majority are loyal only to the very wealthy who fund their campaigns. This is especially true for Republican members of Congress.

Don’t believe me. Look at this.
-In this past election almost $2 Billion dollars was contributed to campaigns by 150 Billionaire families. 150 people is 0.00004% of our population, but they control who gets elected. About 72% of this money went to Republicans. 22% to Democrats with 6% going to Robert Kennedy Jr. who eventually backed Trump. In short, 78% went to Republican Presidential candidates.
–Elon Musk, was the largest individual donator to the election as he by himself gave almost $300 Million dollars to Republican candidates. The next six largest donors gave over $729 Million to Republican candidates. In short, the 7 largest donors gave over $100 Billion to Republican candidates.

Why did billionaires donate all this money to Republicans. So Republicans would reduce their taxes. Well, they certainly got what they paid for, but the American people did not. The Kaiser Foundation estimated the bill Republicans just passed will reduce medical benefits for as many as 17 million Americans. Think about it. 17 million Americans will lose their health care benefits because of 7 extremely wealthy people.

In addition, SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance] benefits about 42 Million Americans annually, a large percentage of these are children. With this new bill, federal SNAP benefits will reduced significantly and it may be the entire program may be eliminated. Again think about, millions of Americans including children will go hungry because of 7 very wealthy individuals.

All of the above millions of voters who lost their health care and nutritional benefits were not represented by their Republican members of Congress when they past this last bill. Republicans sold their souls to the devil or more accurately billionaire devils. In a very real sense, Republicans are well paid prostitutes with salaries and benefits.

A few days ago I was visiting with a friend in the financial service business. He told me he was meeting with a client who brought her new boyfriend to the meeting. When my friend explained how the new bill will negatively affect Medicaid recipients, the boyfrind said he was not worried about that, “poor people do not vote”. Money drives our National election, not constituents who they are supposed to be representing.

So what is the answer? The only answer I can see is an amendment to the Bill of Rights as follows:
A: Only individuals can donate money to a political who are eligible to vote for that candidate. Specifically in the House only eligible voters in that district are able to donate funds to a campaign and in the Senate, only eligible voters in that state are able to donate funds to that campaign.
B: The maximum an eligible voter can contribute to any campaign cannot exceed 20% of the either National median income of or the median income for the voter’s county.
C: Contributions can only come from eligible voters, not a Pac, Super-Pac or any other type of entity.
D: Advertising or promotions can only be paid from the candidate’s election committee funded as outlined above. No Pac, Super-pac or any other entity is allowed to run advertising or promotion for a candidate. This includes any form of social media.
E: Eligible voters can register to vote with a variety of forms of IDs including but not limited to a passport, state DL, government approved ID card [social security or Medicare card for example] or other approved forms of a National ID. Citizens can vote at their precinct or by mailed ballot. The polls open 90 days prior to the election.
F: Ranked voting in which each qualified candidate is ranked on each ballot by voters starting at 1, then 2, etc. If one candidate does not reach 50% of total voters on the first ballot, then candidate with the lest votes is dropped off with his/her votes redistributed until a candidate has 50% of the total votes.

Can you imagine if National candidates could only get campaign funds from individuals who could voter for them and there was limit on an individual contribution? They would have to connect and service their constituents, not the most wealthy in country regardless where they lived. They would also have to address issues important to their constituents, not wealthy.

Does this seem to pie in the sky? Maybe for some, but compared to what our Founding Fathers accomplished, it is not. Our Founding Fathers would be appalled at how current election system is driven by money.

Equally, if not more important, how many of our Nationally elected members of Congress and President would still be elected if the above rules were put in place. 50% maybe. I doubt if it would even be close to that high.

We need the President and all members of Congress to be beholden only to the their constituents who they are supposed to serve, not big money. Right now we have Taxation with No Representation. For democracy and our economic system to continue, we must change this.

A National movement to make this happen is one I would embrace.