in the wrong era. Soundly refuting
liberals online since 2000. NOTE: That is NOT
me pictured at left. :)
| WSJ | World: Europe Girds for Greek Exit |
0 |
| Shark Tank | Developing: Wasserman Schultz On Verge of Being Cancelled at Temple Israel |
0 |
| T’graph | 0 | |
| NYT | Policy: Romney Calls Education ‘Civil Rights Issue of Our Era’ and Urges Shift |
0 |
| RCP | Campaign 2012: Why Tuesday’s Democratic Primaries Matter |
0 |
Audacity of Truth
"Diplomacy":
"People are saying what in the world is going on with North Carolina, we look like Mississippi." - NC Gov. Bev Perdue (D) on the passage of Amendment One, 5-11-12
Money does buy elections
Wisconsin had their spring non-partisan general election last night, and the results could not be more disappointing from my perspective. There were two statewide races, for a seat on the state Supreme Court, and for state superintendent. The Supreme Court race was a given loss; Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson is an institution, and she faced a very weak opponent in Judge Randy Koschnick. Moreover, the left in Wisconsin scared off the conservative sources of money, which was instrumental in providing money parity in the previous two Supreme Court elections both won by the conservative candidate. Meanwhile, they continued to pour money into Abrahamson’s campaign. There was no surprise in that race, as WTMJ-TV reported, with 94% reporting, Abrahamson won with 59.3% of the vote.
The more-disappointing race was the state superintendent. It was an open seat, and in a state where education is, frankly, a mess, there could not be a bigger difference between Rose Fernandez, an advocate for virtual public schools, and Tony Evers, a long-serving bureaucrat in the Department of Public Instruction. There was a somewhat-contested 5-way primary between those two and three others, including Van Mobley. Mobley was considered the “safe” country-club GOP candidate who wouldn’t rock the boat too much, and he finished a very distant third behind Evers’ 35.4% and Fernandez’ 31.2%, getting 13.5% of the vote.
Perhaps because of that snubbing by the voters, perhaps because of the larger, successful effort by the left to shut up relatively-deep-pocketed right-leaning groups, but probably because of a combination of the two, there was nobody with enough money on the right willing to counter the Wisconsin Education Association Council’s massive TV ad buy in support of Evers right before the election. Indeed, the Fernandez campaign barely raised $15,000 the entire campaign, almost all of it after the primaries. That was far short of the $208,000 raised by Evers and the over-half-million spent on his behalf. That was even well short the $95,000 raised by Mobley.
Do not mistake this for a call for public financing of elections, or for limitations on speech. Instead, it is a wakeup call for the right. The left is all-too-willing to buy elections, and we need to participate in the battle.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
>>> “Do not mistake this for a call for public financing of elections”
What? So money should control who gets elected? And WMC or the R’s never buy an election?
Conservatives simply don’t get it. Money given to politicians works, and works well. It buys policy and it buys government spending on services that can’t stand on their own merit. And guess what? That increases the taxes conservatives hate so much.
So yes, this IS a call for public financing of elections. I want my politician working for the public and not the private interests.
Let me get this straight, Jack. You say that money buys policy, but then claim that government providing that money won’t buy more government. Do recognize that modern government exists to grow itself by every means available.
An extreme example is the Regional Transit Authority. It was created a few years ago in an attempt to put the various public transit entities in southeast Wisconsin in one agency, and it was given a revenue source of a $2 tax on rental cars. In two years, it raised $500,000. It spent $450,000 of that $500,000 on lobbyists for the express purpose of getting authority to raise taxes.
Thanks, but no thanks; I’ll take my politicians bought and paid for by private citizens rather than apparachniks.
Steve, politicians are paid by special interests to spend money foolishly, and by the taxpayers to spend money smartly. Is public funding perfect? Nothing is.
But look at what private money has accomplished so far. Deregulation of the financial industry that has trashed our economy. Over $9 million from AIG alone given to politicians. It is bipartisan corruption, but it is corruption nonetheless.
What would you do if one of your employees was taking money from a vendor on the side and giving company assets in return? Is that any different from our political system?
There’s no doubt money buys elections. WEAC bought the election. Tony Evers is just the token human being required to fill the chair. What “Moneyed Politics” really does is purchase the pertuation, and expands, the MONOPOLY role of government. Example: The election of Tony Evers maintained the WEAC monopoly of public education in Wisconsin. What’s most puzzling is City of Milwaukee voters. MPS, like all big ciy school districts, is broken and unfortunatly no one, like the Mayor, has stepped up to the plate to fix the mess. Of course there is a fix in place, the Milwaukee school voucher system. But that fix threatens the MPS monopoly. The teachers union (WEAC) will make every effort to kill the Milwaukee voucher system. If WEAC succeeds, voucher students will be forced to return to poor MPS schools. WHY WOULD THE CITIZENS CITY OF MILWAUKEE VOTE FOR THAT? ANSWER: MONEYED POLTICS
And Steve, think about your Regional Transit Authority example for a moment. RTA spent $450K on private lobbyists, a portion of which was passed on in private contributions to affect government policy. That would not have happened under a publicly financed system. The current system allows RTA to legally circumvent the rules.
You have a great way of misrepresenting things, Jack. First things first, it wasn’t deregulation of the economy, but a mandate that mortgage issuers issue mortgages to those that had no business having mortgages that crashed that market.
As for AIG; the reason why they’re in the donation game is because government is too powerful for them to not have their say.
Finally, you completely misrepresent the nature of lobbying. Lobbying is having people present at the Capitol to personally voice the wishes of an entity. The reason they’re so effective is that the “mere” citizen rarely is able to voice their wishes.
Indeed, for most people, the only way to voice their wishes is to financially support the candidates that share their views. Take that away, and the government itself, the media, and the lobbyists will have total control.
Off-topic, do you prefer capitalism or socialism?
Steve, only Fannie and Freddie could have received such a mandate, and they likely did (from Barnie Frank). But private lenders followed them into the flames. They were not mandated to go. The rules were lifted so they could, and even wildly make unsound investments elsewhere.
Without political bribery they likely would have banned bait-and-switch adjustable rate mortgages, banned the bundling of toxic loans, and much more.
So, AIG feels that bribing congressmen is good for business? And the only way to get laws passed or repealed? Interesting. So it comes down to whether the conservatives or liberals pay the most in bribes? That’s not the way most of us want our government to be run.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with lobbying; only lobbying with cash in hand. Bribing politicians to get laws passed that otherwise would not be passed should be criminalized. Even if laundered as a campaign contribution.
Otherwise, lobbying is essentially educating your politicians on your view, even though it may be biased. But lobbying itself should remain legal.
>> “The reason they’re so effective is that the “mere” citizen rarely is able to voice their wishes.”
No, the reason lobbying is so effective is because the accompanying money does what it is intended to do: buy legislation. You said so in your opening. If money were not effective it wouldn’t be given.
>>> “… and the lobbyists will have total control.”
That’s where we differ. I do not want money to control my politicians.
Better to ask, do you prefer “unfettered” free-for-all capitalism or “moderate” socialism?
I prefer a “regulated” free market without political bribery. I prefer politicians voting for the people rather than their pocketbooks.
I love it when someone defends the “not regulated enough” position, and ignores reality. Like when His Hollowness was a mere legal advisor to an ACORN group that went to lending institutions and threatened to shut them down if they didn’t find a way to finance people on welfare, people without jobs, people (fill in your own blank here as long as it is a victim group).
The form of unregulating government interference we have now is no worse than “unfettered capitalism”. The government right now determines the winners and losers, and that ain’t right.
Carlos, I am not impressed with many of our government bureaucrats, and fully believe that we must scour the system to get rid of unnecessary departments and functions. But that didn’t happen under Bush either, though he promised the elimination of the DOE. Then he was elected and increased their budget instead, and grew the rest of the government by 10% since 2000. (For the record, I voted for him twice and McCain in 2000 & 2008).
But I trust government more than I trust CEOs whose salaries and bonuses are determined by how much they can screw the public. These jokers control congress through their campaign contributions and, unfortunately, cannot be unelected. We elected the Dems but the CEOs remain in power by virtue of their campaign contributions. How’s that for democracy?
Our basic problem is congressional corruption. Politicians who vote for their pocketbook. The conservatives took over in 1994 under Gingrich and it’s been downhill ever since. I’m not impressed, but then again, I’m open to trying something new.
Our founding fathers were very worried about the situation our country now finds itself. After decades of bribed politicians we now have a wealth transfer system result. Those bribing the politicians get bang for the buck (ROI). They get an unfair competitive advantage over their competitors. In some cases they even achive monopoly status, such as the case with public schools. The tipping point is the danger point. That’s where we are now. Close to 50% of the US population believes they benefit from government and political bribery that’s part of the government game. The list:
1. All government workers including all educators, K through 12 and all Colleges and Universities.
2. Virtually all government contractors including, of course, the road builders and defense contractors.
3. The enviornmentalists: They believe only government can force an enviornmental cleanup.
4. The Socialists: This is of course the redistribution of wealth crowd.
When added together the group is at or near 50% of the voters.
Thanks in large part to a bribed Congress I believe we are now at the point where the wealth consummers exceed the wealth generators. That not only spells socialism, over time time it spells national bankruptcy.
Russ, I agree until you get to #4. Wealth redistribution has been going on for years. See inequality.org. Admittedly, they are trying now to rebalance it, and well they should. The alternative is rebellion and anarchy. Already the wealthy are hiring security and bodyguards to protect them from the masses they screwed. What a way to live.
Why, J.L., is it an either/or solution? Just curious.
And so you don’t miss it, here are the numbers: http://www.demos.org/inequality/numbers.cfm
Those bad workers now want to get their share. Can you imagine that?
Jack
On wealth redistribution there is a case to be made. Automation has changed everything. Robots make products these days. The auto industry provides a good example: Auto workwers made cars with their hands in former times and today many have beeen replaced by automation / robots. The result, layoffs. Problem is the sweet of their brows provided the capital to buy the robots. ALL auto workers must participate in the financial rewards of automation. To some extent the generous benefits make it fair but there should be formal ongoing rewards. Employee owned companies is one way to go. In fact employee owned, done fairly, will provide redistribution of wealth at the company level. That’s the proper level to redistribute.
Don’t understand, Carlos. Between which two choices? Seems to me we have just one pie, and though the pie grows in size the wealthy are progressively getting a bigger piece. Can’t last forever. Rebellion and anarchy are the only possible end results.
And Russ, I like the idea of employee-owned companies. I’d even be satisfied with a shareholder-controlled company, but through proxies and other incestuous board relationships even shareholders have little control.