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If different campaigns and Super PACs are to be believed, a billion dollars of outside money is going to be spent in this cycle just to help elect Republicans according to Politico.
Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives – including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress, according to officials familiar with the groups’ internal operations.
That total includes previously undisclosed plans for newly aggressive spending by the Koch brothers, who are steering funding to build sophisticated, county-by-county operations in key states. POLITICO has learned that Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections – twice what they had been expected to commit.
You should read the whole article if you want all the gory details of where all this outside money is coming from. The important point, though, is that we have a serious problem with the corrupting influence of money in our politics. We have always had problems with this issue, but since the Citizens United ruling, it has grown to levels not seen since the Gilded Age and could really hurt our country.
Already, Congress is most responsive to the opinions of the richest Americans. This dynamic is only likely to grow worse when the bulk of all political spending can theoretically be funded by only a handful of super rich individuals.
Democrats had a big opportunity to do something real about campaign finance reform in 2010 after the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United, but they completely failed to act, partly because they thought they would benefit. That is the problem with our system. The people with the power to improve it only got into power because they are skilled at exploiting the broken system, so they have little incentive to try to change.
I can only hope the disgusting amount of outside money about to be spent in this election will create a popular outcry for some far reaching reforms, but it is a thin hope. Get ready for an era when politicians live in constant fear that if they do something a particular industry or very small group of wealthy people doesn’t like, those rich people could easily drop tens of millions on ads to try to end their career.
18 Comments
alot of people in the media say, “Even if billionaires wanted to donate massive amounts of cash, why would they?”
I think besides getting to shape the policy towards their ideals, billionaires now see buying politicians and influence as a game of how much power each one has. I think alot of this money is a big game of who has more power. With rich people its all about power.
I agree. It has become a game with them with no thought about the results to the country and other people. Maybe it has always been a game among the rich.
Agree 100%. These are not donations, they are purchases.
Look, you’re the KOch brothers. You each have $35 billion. What the hell else are you gonna do with that much money??? You realize each Koch brother could spend $1 BILLION on politial purchases, several congressmen, couple of senators, a supreme court justice, maybe evena governor, and still have $34 BILLION left.
If only we could channel (Papa) Joe Kennedy. Betcha he could answer that question.
I betcha he could. His money worked out well for us.
This time, not so much.
Agreed. Not picking on or necessarily defending Papa Joe. But people used to have morals, conscience, and conviction. Not lately. Just greedy bastards with no conscience and no morals.
Jon..thanks for the link above, “most responsive to the…”. Guys and gals, worth a read.
Given that the “average” U.S. voter is arguably the most ill-informed, misinformed and just plain ignorant on so many levels of any voter in the industrialized world I’m sure the .01%ers will be rewarded handsomely on their “investment.”
Yep. Capone was thought of as a good person to his family, to the neighborhood, looked out for them, took care of everyone in the right way.
Joe made his bones as a bootlegger, shared some Nazi sympathies — or were those anti-Communist?
FDR made him US ambassador to the Court of St. James in 1940 (?) during Lend-Lease, that shady (er, ‘gray’) way of not violating the Neutrality Act. Many merchant ships and men were lost in the North Atlantic.
Conclusion: Why send a successful bootlegger to represent the US at the Court of St. James?
Political parties are PRIVATE ENTITIES whose SOLE purpose is to influence AND control PUBLIC POLICY.
As private entities, political parties may, and do, sell themselves to the highest bidder.
NONE of this should surprise anyone.
And Jon, politicians USE fear all of the time, on the people.
Frankly, I do not give a damn if the current political class begins to have a few nightmares, as ALL that they will do, is poll-dance, strip-down the Constitution, further … and ask what “tune” they should spread their largess on next … like any prostitute, their “job” is to please whoever is spending the money.
Now, if “the people” are to become, however thinly, “disgusted”, and cry out for deliverance it will merely add some background color as those billions of “extras” make the “starring” celebrity class ever more sure of themselves and more given to extreme and excess.
As Braodstreetbuddy properly implies, once you have obscene amounts of money … what’s left to covet but power, the power to do any damned thing you wish, anytime you wish, TO anyone and everyone whom you wish to do “it” to.
If the politicians had not sold-out long ago, then things might be different.
Now, how long will this go on?
Probably long enough that environmental collapse will sneak up behind us and “do” us all … in the end.
Too bad, there are no alternatives.
NO other ideas, and no “other”, alternative “politicians” who will not aid and abet the plunder and pillage.
Were you the one who mentioned that both of the legacy party candidates for President will each spend a half billion dollars in their quest?
Do we need to get money out of politics or politics out of money?
It’s all the “same” to the billionaire “set” … they’ve got “theirs” and we are going to get ours, how was it Mencken put it? … oh yes, “…good and hard!”
And now, let’s get back to the big story of the day … that most exciting Obama-Romney horse race, shall we?
Who’s ahead?
We already know who is going to lose … no matter which of the money-grubbers “win”, right?
If the suspense isn’t killing us, then current political “philosophy” most certainly is …
Got any complaints?
Tough.
Smile, today it’s “free”.
Tomorrow, you might not be able to afford the luxury.
;~DW
Half the eligible voters don’t vote at all, and they’re probably the best-informed, like George Carlin, who said his vote is pointless.
In an exclusive excerpt from Last Call, his history of Prohibition, Daniel Okrent writes that long-held beliefs about Joe Kennedy’s bootlegging business are bunk.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/04/26/the-kennedy-bootlegging-myth.html
Superb analysis & synthesis as usual. Keep your ID papers safe, DW — they deported Emma Goldman.
I don’t know about that. Look at those pics of the Kochs, those Seinfeld toilet-bowl-bright teeth are very expensive when done right.
Well, then, I disavow my bunk, especially since it doesn’t matter what I think. You remind me about something Robert Caro writes in his bio of LBJ, how in the 1930′s FDR called the young congressman from Texas into his office, and lo, next thing you know, Johnson’s district got electricity and indoor plumbing.
Washington’s Farewell, warning about the nature of political parties, is prophetic. Also Jefferson and Madison warned of the relationship between the “monied interests” i.e. corporations/aristocrats and political parties, gaming the system. Guess what? They are all correct and spot on as money buys the servitude of the American people to business models, surely as the US Congress protected the institution of slavery. Its about time we go back to our founders and their concerns for the future of the republic. Fuck everyone else………
One billion dollars from outside groups sounds low to me.
Of course, we have no way of knowing where (or who) the money comes from or where it goes, do we? How could we know how much?
I listen to all the talk about the “free market” and “job killing regulations” and I have to wonder. What is this mythical “free market” they talk about? As far as I can tell the “free market” is controlled by a smaller and smaller number of giant, multi-national corporations and billionaires.
Regulation of the financial industry is a pathetic joke. It doesn’t exist. I suppose the global economy is finally “leveling off”… our working and middle class is now being forced to compete with the rest of the world. Our retirement plans, pension plans and social security are being taken away. All of our labor protections, Environmental protections, public health regulations, food safety regulations, product safety regulations… are disappearing or less and less enforced. Wages will soon follow.
And kiss most of the small businesses goodby. They’re building a Wallmart on every corner (six new ones are being planned for Washington D.C.), a Home depot and maybe a Best Buy next to it. Small businesses will be reduced to competing on ebay or amazon. There are a handful of giant, multinational, corporations that control every industry in this country (the world actually). Whether it’s the media/entertainment industry, the financial/banking industry, the food/farming industry, the defense/weapons industry, the health care industry, the energy industry, the telecom industry, the “Cyber Defense industry”, the technology industry… You can point to from two to seven giant multinationals that control each of them.
These giant multi national corporations are free to spend unlimited, unregulated money, “lobbying” our elected leaders, and literally writing (OR ELIMINATING) the legislation and the laws that regulate them.
AND THESE PEOPLE HAVE THE GALL TO SAY REGULATION IS WHAT’S DESTROYING US? THE REGULATION THAT THEY ARE MOST RESPONSIBLE FOR WRITING AND/OR ELIMINATING?
FREE MARKET? Let’s see,just recently, I heard that a Mexican billionaire (the richest man in the world?) wants to buy (or already has bought) media companies in the United States. Or how about the China corporation buying all those AMC theaters in the United States for billions, oh yeah, and they’re buying banks now as well. And Bank of America is outsourcing tens of thousands of jobs to China. Or the Saudi billionaire who owns? a huge chunk of Newscorp… Who knows who owns what anymore? These are all giant multinational corporations with virtually no accountability, or responsibility to the people of our country or the people of any other country as far as I can tell. Who knows what other countries or their billionaires own in the United States? And who knows what “our” multinational corporations own in other countries or how they influence their governments?
And not a one of them want any regulation unless they are allowed to write them in a way that increases their profits and? reduces the profits of their competitors. Especially small business.
How much money are they spending to influence our elected government?
If we ever find out it will probably be too late. Because, for the most part, most of us haven’t even begun to think about (or want to begin to think about) the ways we are being influenced, threatened, bribed and blackmailed… by those who have hijacked our democracy.
It’s only the GOP that’s doing this?
That’s your implication.
Seems light by about one party.
BOYCOTT THE SILLY PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2012 — There is nothing there for you. No matter which way you vote the people’s agenda will never be advanced. Vote third party or write-in “My mother” and it won’t matter.
Time to Interview: Terri Lee with Bob Carson of Carson’s Corner
We here at Carson’s Corner in conjunction with Underground Progressive, 530 AM, have waited a long time to have online activist Terri Lee on the program. Followed and admired by thousands, Terri Lee has come to the forefront of progressives who are fed up with Obama and the Democrats. We see the two political parties as essentially indistinguishable; and we are not afraid to go against the establishment to ensure a better America.
*NOTE: Proletarian Center for Research, Education and Culture has officially endorsed the call to Boycott the 2012 Presidential Election
Have a listen:
AUDIO: http://prolecenter.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/boycott-the-2012-election-carsons-corner-interviews-terri-lee/#comment-881
resist.
Boycott the system of electoral oppression. It’s a scam, offering us nothing. Do you want to choose your warden or knock down the walls of the prison?
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