This question is almost (no offense intended) absurd. The government appropriates money for things, and the way to keep them happy is to.....give them money.
There never was any "idealistic" time when we had pristine politics or that the Republicans and Democrats (or any of the parties in our history) ever got along like two scoops of ice cream. Furthermore, how do you get a politician who has thrived in one set-up to be willing to abandon that set-up in the name of cleaning things up? Money used to buy votes at places like Tammany Hall and Chicago - ironically, one of the plusses of the development of the New Deal welfare system was that it took power to fix elections out of the hands of local bosses with the consequence of people now voting in whoever they feel will protect their money (which is sort of the same thing we're talking about with the donations here).
Corruption and power by money has always been even here in the good ole USA. Simply go look up some names like James Blaine, Mark Hanna, Maurice Stans, Ron Brown, Paul Tully, and others. Offices were bought and paid for by the railroad industry in the 19th century and the "Chicago miracles" of the Daley regime are legendary. Texas oil money, too.
It is what it is, and it isn't changing. And the simple fact is that if you're rich you can get a seat at the table (not all that different from moving to the front of the Tide Pride line, ha ha). Two things I've always found amusing are the GOP candidates who rant "against government" but then want a job in government and the Democratic ones who will scream hysterical about "the rich" and money and "the system" but yet take that system's money and actually try to persuade people they're "for" the "common man," who gave them nothing.
But I side with George Carlin here - if the problem is REALLY the politicians then WHERE are all of the great people of conscience? As he notes, these pols don't fall out of the sky from another universe, they're part of our daily lives.
