Only The Rich Run For President

One of the major reasons why the politicians in Washington seldom do anything that truly helps ordinary Americans is because most of those politicians have no idea of what the lives of ordinary citizens are like. Most of the politicians are rich, and they haven't had to worry about how they're going to meet all their bills and still buy food to feed their family for a long time -- if ever.

And it's even worse with the people who run for president. It's been a long time since a middle class person even ran for that office, let alone got elected to it. For example, here are the net worth figures for the Republican presidential candidates this year:

MITT ROMNEY -- worth between $190 million & $250 million

MICHELE BACHMANN -- worth between $1.3 & $2.8 million

HERMAN CAIN -- worth between $2.9 million & $6.6 million

RON PAUL -- worth between $2.25 million & $5 million

RICK PERRY -- worth at least $1.1 million

JON HUNTSMAN -- worth between $16 million & $71 million

NEWT GINGRICH -- worth at least $6.7 million

RICK SANTORUM -- worth between $880,000 & $1.9 million

GARY JOHNSON -- worth between $3 million & $10.5 million

And this is not true just of Republican candidates -- I wish it was. President Obama is worth around $10.5 million, and every Democrat who ran against him in the 2008 election primaries was at least worth a million dollars. The fact is that these days if you don't have at least a million dollars, don't even think of running for president -- and if you do have enough money to run for president, then you probably don't have a clue about how most Americans really live.

Understanding this, and the fact that most in Congress are also millionaires, is it any wonder that nothing gets done to help the Americans truly hurting from the effects of this recession? Some of them really believe that what's good for millionaires is good for everyone, and the rest are just too greedy to care. And if someone accidentally gets elected who's not a millionaire, Wall Street is there to fix that.

Our political system is really broken, and that's exactly what the Occupy Wall Street protesters are trying to make Americans understand. Our democracy is dying, and it's quickly being replaced by a plutocracy -- rule by the wealthy class.