Money talks.

• Author: Francis, Kerry
• Position: Letters - Letter to the editor

Normally I tune out James Carville because I feel his comments are so far out there. But his (and Paul Begala's) article ("Not One Dime," March) on how to reform the current campaign process is perfect. Raise the pay for senators so it is more in line with corporate America, but force them to accept nothing. I have heard before that the majority of an elected official's time is spent raising money for their next campaign. What Carville and Begala propose would eliminate that and allow the elected officials to do what they are supposed to be doing (working and listening to the people they represent).

Kerry Francis

Via email

Nope--it won't work. If you pay congressional employees $400,000 instead of $160,000 and cut off all external sources of funding, here's what you'll get: nothing. As an executive who monitors employee expenses and pay plans, putting these folks on a fixed income will force them to starve their constituents. They won't spend anything that is theirs on serving the voter--they'll hoard it.

The real solution is not to increase their pay--the real solution is term limits and the elimination of earmarks. Don't be fooled by the likes of Begala and Carville. They don't have real jobs and they have no clue how to stop this problem. For the most part, they have no clue other than how to entertain us-and that they do with gusto.

Peter J. Brunk

Vice President Sales

Acme Industries, Inc.

Des Plaines, Ill.

This is a pretty good idea. The only part I don't like about it is the matching funds. While there clearly needs to be some matching, if incumbents are to be prohibited from fundraising, I think it should be far less than 80 percent. Incumbency in and of itself is a huge advantage, as we all know. If the incumbent is doing a good job, that should carry a huge amount of weight that is effectively free, and if he or she is doing a bad job, they should not be rewarded if a large amount of money is raised to defeat them. You would basically be rewarding bad performance. Conversely, let's say a big dollar amount, a million dollars, came in from the KKK or some equally despicable organization or person. The disclosure of that fact per your proposed system would be so damaging as to negate any amount of advertising that might be purchased. I think overall the idea is great (although I am a greater fan of term limits and think that would better solve many of the same problems), but the matching should be more on the order of 50 percent than...