Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States regarding the use of public funds to pay for campaigns for election to Federal office.

The question settling over this Capitol as we face the fiscal cliff is: How can this be happening? It's hyperpartisanship meets Citizens United. America's politics are so saturated with money and so politically polarized that the system cannot function to meet its obligations to keep the government running. But make no mistake about it--government does work. It's working for Pentagon contractors, for arms manufacturers, for oil companies, for coal companies. It's working for those who want to hold down wages and suppress the rights of workers. It's working for drug companies whose sweetheart deal on prescription drugs blew a hole in the Medicare budget.

The apparent dysfunctionality of government masks the reality that the tax resources of government increasingly are going to the highest bidders in a $4 billion national election. The debris at the bottom of the fiscal cliff will be the wrecked hopes of doctors and Medicare patients, unemployed workers who can't protect their families, and middle class taxpayers who just can't pay any more. Our Nation's pose at the fiscal cliff is proof of the necessity of a constitutional amendment, H.J. Res. 100, to rid this Nation of the corrupting influence of special interest money with public financing, which recreates a true government of the people.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to America's economic recovery is that corporations can legally buy elections and then influence policies which move millions of jobs out of America which escape taxation by offshoring profits, which cash in on wars, which press military industrial spending through the roof.

While we pledge allegiance to the red, white and blue, corporations, whose only allegiance is to green, are selling out America; and they're becoming ever more powerful because of a Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, which effectively turns this government into an auction where policies may go to the highest bidder.

We must stand up for America. We must reclaim our Nation. House Joint Resolution 100 is a constitutional amendment which aims at taking all private money out of elections and returning government to the people.

I urge my colleagues to support H.J. Res. 100 so that we can break the golden shackles which are imprisoning this government right now and so that we can get rid of corporate influence once and for all. No private money in elections. Support H.J. Res. 100.