I’ve long thought the money in politics is obscene. When I heard that Congresspeople spend 20 to 30 hours a week trying to raise money for their next campaign, is it any wonder why they never get much done in DC? (The Boston Globe did an article here saying new members are told they need to spend four hours a day raising money or they will be gone.) When the Supreme Court decided that Money equalled Speech back in 1976, things began to change with how money influenced our politics. (See Columbia Law School’s timeline on all of the Supreme Court’s campaign finance decisions to date here) In this term, the Supreme Court will be looking into unlimited contributions through PAC’s in McCutcheon vs. FEC , which could mean all bets are off regarding curtailing contributions to candidates.
What does that really mean for those of us without unlimited resources? I think we saw that yesterday, when a plan was about to go to the floor of the House to solve the government closure and debt ceiling issue, and there was a call made from Heritage Action that kept the Speaker from bringing the bill to the floor for a vote. The representatives in our government are being threatened and blackmailed by outside groups, funded by a few very wealthy individuals, including a $500,000 donation to Heritage Action this week from the Koch Brothers. (Note: The original article I read and referenced from Newsmax is no longer available online, but the same donation is reported here by Politico.)
If a political action committee can call the Speaker of the House and prevent a bill from coming to the floor that is vitally important to our economy, what is that other than corruption? This is how money is fundamentally affecting and crippling our government, and I don’t think there’s any other way you can see this.
Money is Power.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Lord Acton
The question now becomes, once we have seen the absolute corrupting power money has to dictate what happens in our Country, what are we, the people, going to do to reverse the course and bring Democracy back?