Congress today is without a doubt an elite institution. A new survey states that 44% members of Congress are millionaires compared to 1% of the American public.

That is not surprising. Running for Congress is expensive and raising money very hard to do for a newcomer. Thus as middle-class congressmen retire, the only newcomes for the most part who can replace them are millionaires who can afford to fund their own campaigns. The average House campaign costs $2 million. And so the Congress sees old-timer middle-class representatives leave, and newcomer millionaires enter; and the whole body grows more and more elite and detached from everyday American life.

This is not to state that wealthy power are all out of touch, but a Congress full with so many rich people may fail to appreciate the every day monetary concerns of Americans.

The Congress may be more likely to imposed new regulations that increase prices. They would not mind because they have money, but they would not understand that even minimal regulation costs often do a lot of harm for middle-class families.

Thus a millionaire Congress, I believer, is more likely to take counterproductive measures against the American middle class.

This is one solution for all this: public financing. The taxpayers should fund campaigns so that the “little guy” can run for office every now and then. But then that raises another question: why should you as a taxpayer subsidize political speech that offends you? It is this reason that most Americans opposed public financing.

But what do Americans want now: publicing financing or an out-of-touch millionaire Congress?