Eye Recommend --- Polluted Political Games

Detail from Corrupt Legislation (1896) by Elihu Vedder

POLLUTED POLITICAL GAMES, by Nicholas Kristof -- 
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/opinion/nicholas-kristof-polluted-political-games.html?_r=0

what eye thynk:   Mr. Kristof offers a sad expose of the rampant corruption in our political campaign finance system.

"I've admired the Clintons' foundation for years for its fine work on AIDS and global poverty, and I've moderated many panels at the annual Clinton Global Initiative.  Yet with each revelation of failed disclosures or the appearance of a conflict of interest from speaking fees of $500,00 for the former president, I have wondered: What were they thinking?

But the problem is not precisely the Clintons.  It's our entire disgraceful money-based political system.  Look around:

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey accepted flights and playoff tickets from the Dallas Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones, who has business interests Christie can affect.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida has received financial assistance from a billionaire, Norman Braman, and has channeled public money to Braman's causes.

Jeb Bush likely has delayed his formal candidacy because then he would have to stop coordinating with his 'super PAC' and raising money for it.  He is breaching at least the spirit of the law."

At least?!  He is blatantly ignoring what few constraints we have on political money while coyly saying he "hasn't decided" whether he is going to run, knowing that no one is going to hold him accountable.  It's like an amusing game to him where those irritating little rules are for the lesser people and certainly can't be intended to apply to a "Bush."  He has become the Leona Helmsley of national politics.

"When problems are this widespread, the problem is not crooked individuals but perverse incentives from a rotten structure.

'There is a systemic corruption here,' says Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign money.  'It's kind of baked in.'...

...Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's labor secretary and now chairman of the national governing board of Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog group, notes that inequality has hugely exacerbated the problem.  Billionaires adopt presidential candidates as if they were prize racehorses.  Yet for them it's only a hobby expense.

For example, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson donated $92 million to super PACs in the 2012 election cycle; as a share of their net worth, that was equivalent to $300 from the median American family.  So a multibillionaire can influence a national election for the same sacrifices an average family bears in, say, a weekend driving getaway."

Kinda puts it in perspective, doesn't it?

"(But) the real bargain is lobbying.  That's why corporations spend 13 times as much lobbying as they do contributing to campaigns...

...The health care industry hires about five times as many lobbyists as there are members of Congress.  That's a shrewd investment.  Drug company lobbyists have prevented Medicare from getting bulk discounts, amounting to perhaps $50 billion a year in extra profits for the sector.

Likewise, lobbying has carved out the egregious carried interest tax loophole, allowing many financiers to pay vastly reduced tax rates.  In that respect, money in politics both reflects inequality and amplifies it.

Lobbyists exert influence because they bring a potent combination of expertise and money to the game...and, for a member of Congress, you think twice before biting the hand that feeds you."

Which is another argument for term limits.  Maybe our corporations (and billionaires) would be more economical with their  bribes  donations, if they knew they weren't getting a life-time of fidelity to their cause--that they'd have to start afresh every four or six years.

"The Supreme Court is partly to blame for the present money game, for its misguided rulings that struck down limits in campaign spending by corporations and unions and the overall political donation cap for individuals."

Stand up if you think your $300 political donation will make as much noise when it lands in your favorite politician's pocket as Adelson's $92 billion. (Thank you Mr. Roberts, Mr. Alito, Mr. Scalia, Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Thomas.  You may sit back down now.)

"Still, President Obama could take one step that would help: an executive order requiring federal contractors to disclose all political contributions.

'President Obama could bring the dark money into the sunlight in time for the 2016 election,' notes Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.  'It's the single most tangible thing anyone could do to expose the dark money that is now polluting politics.'"

Imagine the screaming, the hair pulling, the gnashing of teeth over THAT executive order. 

"I've covered corrupt regimes all over the world, and I find it ineffably sad to come home and behold institutionalized sleaze in the United States.

Reich told me that for meaningful change to arrive, 'voters need to reach a point of revulsion.'  Hey, folks that time has come." 

Unfortunately, we are entangled in a campaign-finance catch-22.  We need to replace the people currently in charge before we can begin the job of cleaning up our corrupted system; but it is the corrupted system that protects those who should be the first to go. 

The first order of business should be to put another Democrat in the White House...though that executive order thing sounds pretty good too.