Money in Politics

I get so deeply frustrated when having discussions with those people who believe the single solution to our nations problems lie with politicians. Mainly because they are also usually the same people who want the smallest least intrusive government of all. It is the Mr. Smith goes to Washington idea. That if we could just get the right person into office the problems will all fade away. The belief that we all still live in that Little House on the Prairie style world and that problems are fixed in that 45 minute span of time. Yes I know that I am mixing metaphors here but bear with me please. We just need to send Charles Ingles into town and he will get it right with a little elbow grease. The problem is that our people, or nation, and our world are much too complex to be repaired like the broken saw in Mr. Anderson’s lumber mill. In my opinion the place to start this long and difficult process is that we do need to get the right type of people into office but then we must also give them the ability to do the job once they are there. And that is accomplished by getting the money out of politics. This will not solve all the problems but freeing up the congress to better do their job will certainly help us along. First we must understand that no matter how hard we try we will never rid our world of corruption. It is in all fields and at all levels. From the homeless man on the street buying liquor with the spare change you hand him to the CEO on the top floor playing fast and loose with your pension funds. But to generalize and say that all CEOs are bad, and that all those on welfare or in shelters are bad just creates more problems and fixes nothing. When you do the research, I mean real research not just a quick 20 minutes of FOX or MSNBC in the morning, as you get dressed. But actually read and listen to people on both sides of the issues. Actually verifying the facts before you just blindly accept and start spouting the talking points. The research and the writings of those actually in the trenches tells us that a congressman spends more than half of their time on fundraising and meeting with lobbyists. This fact should disgust and sicken us as citizens. But again we think well if we put Mr. C in that office rather than Mr. X it would be different. The sad truth is that is not different. The system is broken not the people in it. We see study after study showing us that on average politicians in office, that means already on the job we hired them to do spend 55-65% of their day is spent trying to raise money for the always-looming next election. I know the first answer out of most people about this is “term limits” that will fix them. Truth is that term limits wont help in the long run. In fact we will discuss later that based on the turnover of politician-lobbyist-lobbyist-politician it will make the problem much worse. The biggest thing one should take from this information is this. How can we expect good and decent policy to come from congress when they spend a mere 40% of their time working on it? They are hired to be our representatives in Washington yet the majority of their time they are busy asking for money from a very small and rich part of our nation. Why does this tiny portion of our population demand so much of our employee’s time? And the larger and more important question is why do we as the general population allow them to have this much power? If the majority of a congressman’s time is focused on this slim portion of the country it stands to reason that the balance of their policy work and influence is weighted toward that small powerful rich minority. So when he considers which bills to write, support or vote for his loyalty is unbalanced as well. This is not good for the nation. This is a problem no matter who is in that seat. No matter how long they intend to occupy that seat. Whether that time is limited by their choice, our votes, or term limits. In fact logic dictates that if their time is limited they have a shorter time to please those who can benefit them financially. They will fight harder to please anyone who can profit their personal career after his time in office is complete. In fact the turnover of politicians to lobbyist or banker and the other way around is absolutely shocking. So what we have is a small group of people moving from a place in government to a place in big business or from business to government. They all know each other and what the interest of the other might be. I hear again and again how the system in broken. How Washington doesn’t work anymore, that the politicians are corrupt. But the single solution from these cries is always the same. Change those in charge and it will work. But for the past 30 years we have tried that again and again. Nothing has changed. In fact study after study shows that the gap between rich and poor has grown and the middle class is shrinking. Yet we still believe those in office will listen to us if we just pick the right person. It is the same as having bad breaks on a car, but changing the tires every couple of months hoping the problem will fix itself and just go away. We complain how our government officials are corrupt so we get angry and throw them out of office. We say it is unethical for them to take bribes. Yet we very seldom see anger at those paying the bribes, its tad amount to arresting a drug addict after a street corner exchange but letting the dealer go free, as if he was breaking no crime merely providing a service. Please don’t misunderstand. I am by no means excusing the politicians for their part nor am I saying they haven’t done wrong. I am simply making the point that by only attacking half the problem we will never fix the entire problem. If we continue to change those in office every two, four, or six years those who pay them off don’t need to do anything but change the routing numbers and send the funds to a different account. Those who are in financial power do not concern themselves with which party is in power, only how to use that party’s interest to their advantage. They simply change their tactics to appeal to the person in charge of that particular district or senate seat. Perhaps we need to change how we the people find out about and choose those who will represent us? We need to demand that our courts stop recognizing money as speech. Otherwise those with the most money will have the loudest and most powerful voice. The voice of the common man will be drown out. Yet sadly we continue to argue over left, right, liberal, conservative, Democrat, or Republican issues. In my mind that is exactly the way Wall Street wants it. The more time we spend fighting over which candidate to put in office the less we notice candidates are in their pockets. So then what must change what must be done? Well many have tried to change it. Anybody remember the famous McCain-Feingold Bill? Bills like this have failed to achieve their goal of getting money out of politics. Mainly because they never try to get all the money out, because after all money is speech. So they decide to choose some arbitrary number and make that the limit. Saying okay this is it this is the most anyone can donate. And we promise to be open and transparent, about where the money is coming from. The problem with this is that there will always be that next election looming in the background. And all the politicians understand it will take millions of dollars to win it. The most well known lobbyist of the recent past is Jack Abramoff. He has been tried and convicted of many illegal acts in connection with his position. He states in an article he wrote personally for the New York Post on November 10, 2011. “During my time lobbying I found the vast majority of congressional staff I encountered wanted to get a job on K Street. And why not? Their jobs on the Hill were only as secure as their boss’s re-election prospects.” The goes on to say that even a rule banning lobbyists who are former congress men from direct contact it still happens. He states they would often call their friends in Congress and say they were not lobbying because that is wrong. However I do work for ABC Company and others in the company may lobby and be in contact with you. So here we have one of the most unethical lobbyist in recent history telling us how he was able to commit the crimes. He knew that so many in congress want to work for large corporations and make millions of dollars. And they get into bed with the current lobbyists to achieve that. But it also works the other way. Those in the Banking and Oil industries who lobby also go into politics in order to write and enact the laws that will help the companies they worked for in the past. Yet we are to believe that the have broken all past business ties and now only hold the interest of the people. So what is Mr. Abramoff’s solution to this problem that he says will not go away unless laws are passed? He says a lifetime ban on members of congress and their staff from ever lobbying in congress for any reason, or associating in anyway in for profit lobbying efforts. Yes this sounds harsh and drastic. But something must be done to protect the interest of the common man. We so often hear how much small business hates all the rules, regulations and red tape involved in dealing with the government. Large businesses and giant corporations can hire people who only do the government paperwork and can be up to date on any new rules. If you did the real research you would find that the lobbyists write the most of the laws that affect small business or backed by the lobbyists who work for giant corporations. Knowing all too well that they can bury the small businessman in so much paper work he will give up. Another issue rarely discussed in politics or in political discussion is the true definition of a small business and the government’s definition of a small business. They are two vastly different items. When we think of a small business we think of a ma and pa pizza shop on the street corner, one that might employee at most 20 people. But in the eyes of the government and congress any business with 500 employees or less is considered a small business. So question becomes if congressman A gets a $200 donation from pizza restaurant owner and a $8,000 donation for the factory owner with 499 employees whom will that congressman be loyal to when in office? Again we see a system where those who have the most money have the loudest voice. I expect our founding fathers wanted a nation where each and every citizen had the same voice and the same amount of influence. But sadly that is no longer the case. And the more we allow it to happen the worse it will get and the harder it will be to fix. As stated earlier our politicians s pend 60% of their time asking for money that could be from a lobbyist, corporation, or even the average person. The point however is that no matter who it is giving him the money its wrong. He should be spending 100% of his time doing his job, focus on policy. I know of no other job on earth where you can get paid 100% of your salary for working only 40% of the time. The biggest question becomes then how do we get the average everyday person to care enough about this problem to want to fix it. Or even that it is the cause of the problem. Here is the problem as I see it. Those in office are beholding to the very corporations that are sitting on millions of taxpayer dollars. Yet they are not using the rescue tax dollars to help out the average American. The banking community is current holding two trillion dollars of taxpayer money. Bank of America recently announced it laid off 30,000 people. I am only guessing here but I doubt that Bank of America customers are seeing their banking fees coming down. And I would like to see how many of those 30,000 were in high paid upper management positions. So we tell our members of congress we want better health care but hey are too fearful to actually deal with restructuring the private insurance monopolies, nor do they want to deal with restructuring the billion dollar contracts held by the drug companies. So they leave these things intact yet still want the better protect the customer. This process ends up creating a huge debt and deficit problem. It also just pushes the next financial crisis to the next election cycle. Then the process starts over again. We get mad and scream that those in office need to be tossed out. So we do those who get kicked out move on to banking jobs that still influence the new congress. We have seen some in congress try to fix this problem, like Dodd-Frank, McCain-Fingold. However by the time the bills actually get put into place they are so torn apart, and gutted that they do nothing to solve the issue. Mainly because those in congress are never able to say that there should be NO money from PAC, corporations, or Special Interest since the court says money is speech. So instead they pick some arbitrary figure and say that is the limit and this will solve the problem. So I do not see anything happening until we are able to say that money is not speech. If we continue down this path it will only get worse. More money will pour into politics and we will loser our voice. But why is it that the courts keep saying money is speech. Because the congress has never passed the law saying money is not speech. So long as the corporate giants and the lobbyists get and demand 60% of our congress’ time we the people will be left behind. -Johnny V,