New Year's resolutions, experience informs, are exercises in frustration.

So, as Obama says, it's time for change. Look forward, not backward.

This is the year of hopes, not promises or resolutions, which are conscience-tuggers, potential cesspools of guilt. Hopes are easier. They don't demand a resume. Anyone can hope; anything can be hoped for, the sky's the limit.

And if hopes don't come true, there's no guilt, because as everyone knows, hopes don't usually come true.

Join the gang, I say. I'll hope, too. For what? Anything! Anything that sounds good.

My first hope is for honesty in politics.

I've always wondered how Lyndon Johnson became a millionaire while earning for a lifetime a modest federal salary.

How did Peabody's Nick Mavroules, who became a congressman in 1978, avoid detection for so long? He pleaded guilty in 1993 to bribery and racketeering charges.

How come Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., owns so much property in New York and an expensive villa in the Dominican Republic — all of this on a congressman's salary?

And isn't that governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, something else? It appears that he's tried to, among other things, sell Obama's vacant Senate seat for $250,000. Do you believe for a minute this is the first time this guy has reached for a shady buck?

You must have your own pet peeves about many politicians who after a lifetime of moderate income retire to a posh lifestyle, or about locals who stuff bribes into their underwear. If so, join me in my hope, and support my plan for relief.

It's called the net-worth test, an Internal Revenue gimmick invented to convict Al Capone, the famous prohibition gangster.

The feds wanted Al for much many reasons, but all attempts to nab him failed. He was cleverly cautious about his criminal dealings. But he lived big, much bigger than his reported income suggested he could afford.

So some bright guy invented the net-worth test, and it became law. Under its provisions, agents could examine all aspects of Capone's lifestyle, compute the income needed to support it, and compare the answer with his reported income.

Bingo! They had big Al on income-tax evasion.

So why not have agents examine the lifestyles of all elected officials every two years? Compare the income required for such a lifestyle with their reported income. When comparisons make no sense, investigate and report to the public; and where possible, charge, convict and jail the ones with sticky fingers. (Keep an eye on the income of spouses, too).

My second hope is to introduce credentials to the election process. This has become an imperative during a technological age when voters are becoming increasingly illiterate, and people are elected because of personality or means that carry an awesome punch in this time of mass advertising and the Internet.

Critics will say this approach gives new life to the elitist government that John Adams had in mind during the 18th century. Not true. It's simply a recognition that the dream of Joe Six-pack ever running the federal government is over.

Times have changed. Capable, trained people are needed to control the levers of power. The nation can't afford nice-looking, well-spoken and well-meaning rookies running things. The Red Sox and the Patriots wouldn't permit it; corporations wouldn't; large churches wouldn't. Why then permit it in government?

Establish, I say, basic qualifications for each elected position. Then let those qualified slug it out.

These are two of my hopes. Will you help me make them come true?

¢¢¢

Robert Kelly of Peabody writes regularly for the Opinion page. Contact him at robert.kelly5@verizon.net