From the NY Times:
When former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton took a family vacation in January 2002 to Acapulco, Mexico, one of their longtime supporters, Vinod Gupta, provided his company’s private jet to fly them there.
The company, infoUSA, one of the nation’s largest brokers of information on consumers, paid $146,866 to ferry the Clintons, Mr. Gupta and others to Acapulco and back, court records show. During the next four years, infoUSA paid Mr. Clinton more than $2 million for consulting services, and spent almost $900,000 to fly him around the world for his presidential foundation work and to fly Mrs. Clinton to campaign events...
The Clintons are facing a bit of heat over their connection to this company who brokers information and have been investigated by authorities in Iowa who "found that infoUSA sold consumer data several years ago to telemarketing criminals who used it to steal money from elderly Americans."
Yuck.
It's for reasons like this that we desperately need campaign and political reform. These people - even if they're legitimate companies - have been paying big money to well-connected people in an effort to influence policy and it just stinks. Even if a company is NOT wanting favors or to influence policy, the very appearance of favoritism is a detriment to our Republic.
Money is not "free speech." And Big Money is even less so.
12 comments:
Dan, I'm pleased to see that you will critique corruption no matter which Party is engaging in it.
I used to be an enthusiastic supporter of campaign finance reform laws. But then I realized that although this movement was well-intentioned, when you sit down and write actual laws which restrict the flow of money into publicity campaigns, you necessarily limit speech.
There's something wrong in our system: whoever has the most money wins. That's the symptom, not the disease.
I rarely vote for any candidate who has a lot of money, let alone a majority in a campaign season. I vote for the ideas that I support. If sheeple are blindly voting for whoever has the most money, it's because they're too lazy and apathetic to conceptualize a political ideology and vote accordingly.
So the root problem is not that candidates need so much money and so whore out themselves, but that voters are too easily impressed by slick, glitzy, and expensive marketing campaigns.
If our political system is broken, it is the fault of a lazy electorate. And that, unfortunately, is a problem that you can't legislate against.
Well, actually, it is a problem you can legislate against. You can restrict voting to those who care and are informed. I know it's anathema to suggest, but I'm a firm believer in restricting the ability to vote beyond just using age and criminal status.
One other thing that can solve the big money for influence problem: the decentralization of power.
Our nation was formed as a representative republic, it has evolved into federal dictatorship. Gobs of money flows into D.C. for one reason only, that's where all the power is. We've allowed, and liberals especially have encouraged, the growth of an increasingly powerful federal government that has a hand in every pie in the nation. As a lobbyist, if you want something done, you go federal, not state, so the money gravitates to K Street as if it were a greenback black hole.
If you REALLY wanted big money to play less of a role in politics you'd take away it's power to influence, which means taking away power from the politicians it buys.
Thanks fellas.
Eben said:
"We've allowed, and liberals especially have encouraged, the growth of an increasingly powerful federal government"
While I'm all for decentralization and more local autonomy, I won't allow undeserved liberal-bashing here. The Federal gov't has grown most under the last three Republican presidencies. You can't have a Super-sized military costing upwards of a trillion dollars a year and blame "liberals."
Both sides of the aisle spend a lot of money - all of which I'm not necessarily opposed to. But if anything, it has been the Republicans who've grown the gov't more than the Dems these last few decades (at least).
With that caveat, carry on.
John said:
"when you sit down and write actual laws which restrict the flow of money into publicity campaigns, you necessarily limit speech."
On this point, we disagree. I don't equate money with free speech. I agree people ought to be more aware, as well, but we can hardly be informed on everything, can we? We NEED campaign reform.
Here would be some of my ideas on campaign reform...
1. There should be a ban on the types of "gifts" in this particular story for people of influence. I'm not sure what you can do about the rewarding of people AFTER they've left office, but that should leave a very bad taste in the voters' mouths.
2. We could pass legislation slowing the revolving door of people going from gov't office to lobbyist firm to gov't office. If you've been hired by a lobbyist, then you can't be in an elected or appointed position in the gov't for X number of years.
The Reagan/Bush/Bush team have been horrid on this point. They WERE in the oil and military supply fields, were and/or ARE still getting money from those positions, they went in to gov't, when they leave, they go back to these same lobbying industries. It stinks. We could slow that down.
3. Discontinue political commercials - or change the content. Political commercials could only show your planks or something basic such as that. There should be Truth in advertising rules apply to political commercials. Same for the phone calls and mailings.
This would at least somewhat reduce the need for large amounts of money to run for office.
4. Limit amounts that can be given to a campaign. There are some limits already. Limit it some more.
A candidate with two or three billion-dollar-backers should not have more money in their war chest than a candidate with a million $25 backers.
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That's for starters. What about you? What campaign reform measures would you implement? Or do you think they're necessarily a hindrance on free speech?
Sorry Dan, I guess when one say's 'liberals' it's automatically assumed one means Democrats. I do not. I'm of the belief that both Repubs and Dems are big government liberals. Some may talk like they aren't but in reality they are.
Now, when it comes to your solutions to the money in government problem, they're just band-aids on gaping wounds. There's too much money being spent to buy influence because the federal government has too much influence, it's rather simple.
There's really only one solution and that's less power in government. Everything else is just fingers in the damn.
"I'm of the belief that both Repubs and Dems are big government liberals."
Perhaps, but I think one can safely say that there are at least some Big Gov't conservatives in office right now, as well.
This in the news today (from MSNBC):
Dan Bartlett, one of President Bush's most trusted advisers and his longest-serving aide, said Friday he is resigning to begin a career outside of government...
Bartlett said he was leaving for no other reason than to get a job in the private sector and concentrate more on his family.
So, any bets on whether he'll go to oil, pharmaceutical, agribusiness or Halliburton? Or a lobbying group not-yet-named?
I also want to thank you for criticizing corruption no matter who does it. Since other matters had preoccupied me recently, I missed this little number. It doesn't surprise me--I said that the Clintons were corporate whores back when Bill was in office, if you remember.
Still, it is disappointing. You'd at least think that Hillary's ambition and sense of self-preservation would keep her from doing this while campaigning. Sigh.
Anyone reminded of the movie Primary Colors and how easy it was for these bright Democratic workers to get disillusioned because the electable candidate (Travolta's Clinton clone) was also a sleazebag?
Sometimes struggling for a more just society can seem like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Hey Dan,
Good post, but I think transparency is the key. As long as we know that people spent money flying the Clintons around, the people can decide if it is worth voting or not voting for them.
If you REALLY wanted big money to play less of a role in politics you'd take away it's power to influence, which means taking away power from the politicians it buys.
Eben Flood is exactly right. There will be less bribe money flowing into Washington if the federal government followed the 10th Amendment.
What campaign funding laws should we have? As others have written, transparency. And then if the voters want to elect crooks, it's their own fault.
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