The longer a person serves in Congress, the more attuned they are to remaining in Congress. It more than a job. Its a political career.

It takes nearly a million dollars to successfully run for Congress. Long timers know how to extract money from corporations and wealthy benefactors. They know they must raise nearly $10,000 a week to reach their $1,000,000 goal for their campaign chest. Their vote counts...for money.

Those remaining in Congress the longest know their levels of power and authority will soar when they become committee chairmen. They then control enormous amounts of money and gain proportionally large favors from the companies they help regulate. The more money a committee controls, the more money special interests will contribute to their comfort and reelection campaigns.

Extended careers in Congress do not ensure representative government. Rather, they ensure the seeking of political power and prestige and often frustrate the exercise of democratic principles.

The Clean Air Act helped produce catalytic converters that purify the emissions from automobile exhaust. Though helpful for people, the act was not popular with Michigan's auto manufacturers. Representative Dingell was able to bottle up the Clean Air Act for a decade, delaying the reduction in pollutants we all breath.

Is it any wonder that automotive PACs are big contributors to John Dingell's reelection campaign? Is it any wonder that the automotive industry shovels its soft money contributions to those in power?

Congressman Sander Levin sits on two Ways and Means sub-committees:

• Subcommittee on Trade
• Subcommittee on Social Security

Both these subcommittees deal with issues that are of utmost concern to every American. We in the Reform Party believe our government has not acted in the best interests of the American people in either area. See my positions on both Fair Trade and Social Security.

Money buys influence. Big money buys a big amount of influence. How much influence do you believe individual citizens have when large, influential power blocks buy influence the following way? Consider some of the top categories of contributors, last election, to Congressman Sander Levin's campaign:

Politicians are not given that much money with no strings attached. Politicians are expected to produce desirable votes or lose their support. While a member's votes in committee meetings are not often made public, the resulting laws and tax reforms are known.

I oppose the free trade agreements being approved by the Subcommittee on Trade that now hurt our nation's manufacturing capability by encouraging the movement of high paying manufacturing jobs to Mexico and other third world countries. I favor fair trade that increases the level of employment in our manufacturing sector and strengthens the middle class.

I oppose the politics of continued spending of the Social Security retirement funds contributed by American workers. The Subcommittee on Social security has not proposed solutions to the removal and spending of the money in the trust fund. Career politicians only think about spending more of the Social Security "trust fund" rather than keeping the faith with workers who will depend on that trust fund. We need a swift change that will protect the trust fund and keep faith with the American worker.

The Rules Committee in the House is one of the most powerful House committees. Every bill that comes to the floor of the House is reviewed by the Rules Committee. This committee decides which bills will be debated on the floor, and which amendments can be presented, thus limiting debate to only acceptable changes. Many of the members of the Rules Committee are chairmen of other committees who aren't especially interested in seeing their bills "corrupted" by proposed amendments.

Allowing a truly democratic amendment process could publicize much of the pork in many bills. It could result in a reduction in spending, thus a reduction in the amount of money committees control.

Career politicians will not let this happen. Eighty-five percent of Rules Committee members have been in Congress for more than a decade.

Three quarters of the members on the Appropriations Committee have been in Congress for more than a decade.

Every committee and subcommittee wants to spend more and more each year. Committees with shrinking spending also shrink in importance. That's not good for your career.

John F. Cogan, a Hoover Institution scholar, summarized this spending mentality in 1992 analysis of spending, "Federal Budget Deficits: What's Wrong with the Congressional Budget Process." He wrote:

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