by Carol Davidek-Waller
More than any other issue, public funding of election campaigns has the potential to change the way our government works. It is an issue that cuts across every area of governance and every concern of American voters.
Point to an intractable problem in American life and you will find special interest or several, damning the flow of legislation that would solve the problem and promote the common good. Whether it’s a corporate bad actor that is putting its short-term financial goals ahead of public health or a well-funded, vocal minority promoting a religious or ethnic agenda, the result is the same, money talks louder than common sense.
The McCain-Feingold Bill, the most recent attempt to mitigate the deleterious effect big money on the election and legislative process, has created a monster. Though individual contributions are limited to $2000 a candidate per cycle, soft money contributions to political parties and interest groups are unlimited. Political parties are now in command of huge amounts of cash and can dictate to their members what issues to support and which to avoid. Party members who deviate may receive little or no support in their next election if they challenge big party donors. It could end their career.GOP members of Congress have provided a textbook illustration of corrosive power of big money by voting in lockstep like mindless robots for a portfolio of shameless legislation. Even the Democrats, traditionally the people’s party, have been infected. A small, rotating cadre of Democrats voted with the GOP to pass some of the most damaging and unpopular of the White House’s legislation. This last election the Democratic leadership used financial arm-twisting to get popular progressive incumbents to go out and stump for unpopular big money Democrats like Lieberman, Cantwell and Feinstein.
We have all seen well funded candidates, in hock to corporate power, win over honest populists who lack the means to counter the slick advertising and dishonest smears of their opponents. When corporate backed candidates take their seats in the legislature, they are expected to remember who their daddy is. Big business's investments have paid off handsomely. For every million invested in campaign contributions and lobbying, corporations and the ultra wealthy have netted billions.
The effects of big money on government may not even be as banal as buying elections or the rash of vote buying in the legislature that was exposed this past year. Every elected representative must take time and resources away from doing the people’s business in order to fill their campaign chests. They are on the phone asking for handouts instead of hearing the concerns of their constituents or actually reading the legislation they are about to vote on. Those donors that help top up the chest quickly naturally command more attention.The result of all this has been a government of, by and for oligarchs. There has been a huge transfer of wealth from the middle and lower classes to the undeserving upper classes, much of it facilitated by outrageous legislation like the bankruptcy bill, tax cuts, corporate pork and even the Medicare Drug Benefit. The corporate war in Iraq, that has bled the US treasury dry, is not being funded by the folks who are profiting. It's the middle and lower class Americans who are paying the bills; the same folks who being fleeced by 14th Century “Bushonomics”. They are also the ones dying and being maimed in this ill begotten adventure.
Our nation is facing some serious problems that are being swept under the rug because of the enormous influence of special interests. A well informed third grader can easily figure out that allowing highly profitable corporations to use our air, water and earth as a refuse dump is a terrible idea. Credentialed scientists are predicting a catastrophe if we do not act to reverse the process. Yet Congress passed an energy bill that was written by the worst polluters and doesn’t even debate the issue of global warming because their big energy donors wouldn’t like it.
America’s health care system is not only tiered, it’s broken. Consumer satisfaction is around 20%, we pay more than anyone else in the industrialized world and have poorer outcomes. 40 some million Americans have no access to health care and the number one cause of bankruptcy in America is catastrophic illness. America’s insurers, HMO’s and drug manufacturers, some of the most profitable businesses in America, like it fine. The result is that the US is only industrialized nation in the world that doesn’t provide healthcare for all its citizens.
Just got laid off because your job got shipped to India, Chile or China? Think the company you helped make successful by your labor and taxes owes you more than a pink slip? Your company doesn't think so and they got congress to subsidize the exportation of your job with tax cuts and other tax-payer funded benefits so they can be “more competitive”. All the thanks you'll get is a job at a carwash.
The religious zealots, who vote in a block for these corporate toadies, wield a great deal of power through a bewildering array of PACs and special interest groups, Their leaders have been eager to trade away this group's economic interests for an occasional unconstitutional government handout and an honest effort on the part of their legislator to link civil rights to sexual orientation and to deny access to family planning for the rest of us.One of the areas where you might think lobbying and big donations don’t count is foreign policy. You’d be wrong. America stood idly by while a country with no air force and little civilian infrastructure to protect its citizens was bombarded by some of the most sophisticated weaponry on the planet. The rest of the world agreed that the attack on Lebanon by Israel was unjustified and disproportionate. We could have stopped it in a heartbeat. US foreign aid to Israel is 7% of their economy and we provide 40% of their weapons. There is complicated system of loans that are always forgiven and other subsidies besides foreign aide that provide even more. There are also over 50 powerful interconnected lobbying groups in this country who back the Zionist government of Israel and who command so much wealth and influence in the US that, according to President Carter, they can destroy the career of any politician. The result was that our compromised politicians squeaked out the tired phrase “our special relationship with Israel” and did nothing while obvious war crimes were committed.
As we slog through our forth year of an unpopular and illegal war we may well ask why hasn’t congress stepped in to curb the “crazies in the basement”. The answer is because of the distorted and unseemly influence of big oil and a bewildering array of war contractors. Big oil is happy to externalize the military and human costs of developing oil fields in a nation hostile to American capitalism. War profiteers are having a field day pocketing a military budget greater than the combined military budgets of the rest of the world. Corporate owned legislators have been unwilling to provide any oversight that might embarrass or curb their benefactors. Obscene profiteering and a disturbing amount of non compliance continues to this day.
Don’t believe the White House trash talk about the US helping the Iraqis or fighting terrorism . It’s a lie. The best way to help the Iraqis is to get out of their hair ASAP. The best way to thwart terrorism is to stop making more terrorists in a brutal military occupation.
You can play the game too. Pick an issue and follow the money. If you want to know who feathers the nest of your senator or congressman, go here. You’ll begin to see that public funding of elections will go a long way toward pulling the rug out from every selfish, greedy, damaging and myopic special interest that has perverted our government. With public funding of elections, we truly can be the deciders.