ronpaulhawaii
11-06-2014, 09:47 AM
I saw a post yesterday about Money in Politics that led to Truth-Out and USA Today articles which, as usual, implied that the Right are the only rich people, that billionaires "bought" the 2014 election, and that SuperPACs (Citizens United) are the bane of "democracy". This always irks me as I know that the left has its share of billionaires... So I did a little digging and here is my response to the post I saw,
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A couple things about "Money in Politics"
The Institute of Justice did a study and found Americans spent $7 billion on elections in the 2012 cycle, and $8 Billion on Halloween that year. That suggests that low participation is a bigger problem than money.
Secondly, it always seems that the left complains of this, suggesting that the right is guilty of it, when in fact, if you look at the actual spending, you see that the left spends far more than the right through these "Super Pacs"
The top 3 super pac disbursements this cycle were from the left: NextGen Climate, Senate Majority, House Majority. They spent over $160 Million combined
The next 3 were from the right: American Crossroads, Freedom Partners, Ending Spending Action. They spent less than half of what the left spent at $76 million combined
Rounding out the top 10 we have:
NEA Advocacy (left leaning) $18 Milllion
Congressional Leadership Fund (right leaning) $16 Million
Americans for Responsible Solutions (left leaning) $16 Million
Independence USA (left leaning) $15 Million
Which totals another $49 Million on the left, and $16 Million on the right
The grand total for the top 10 equals $209 Million for the left and $92 Million for the right.
As usual, the devil is in the details and I don't have time to dig deeper, but others can right here
http://realtime.influenceexplorer.com/pacs/#?ordering=-cash_on_hand&committee_class=UO (get the CSV file)
Again though. I think participation is a much bigger problem than money
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
I'm posting here for a couple reasons:
1 - To give people data points to rebut the typical complaints
2 - Am hoping people better than me with excel (and with more time) can dig through that CSV file and get a complete rundown. A difficulty for me was having to check through the committee_url column to discern partisan leaning. Some are difficult, such as Bloomberg's Americans for Responsible Solutions, which is Right on the surface, but not so much in reality.
Another thing I saw while looking around was indications of potential RINO's, such as Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA 8th) who was supported by Bloomberg, The Sierra Club, Everytown For Gun Safety Action Fund, etc...
Onward
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A couple things about "Money in Politics"
The Institute of Justice did a study and found Americans spent $7 billion on elections in the 2012 cycle, and $8 Billion on Halloween that year. That suggests that low participation is a bigger problem than money.
Secondly, it always seems that the left complains of this, suggesting that the right is guilty of it, when in fact, if you look at the actual spending, you see that the left spends far more than the right through these "Super Pacs"
The top 3 super pac disbursements this cycle were from the left: NextGen Climate, Senate Majority, House Majority. They spent over $160 Million combined
The next 3 were from the right: American Crossroads, Freedom Partners, Ending Spending Action. They spent less than half of what the left spent at $76 million combined
Rounding out the top 10 we have:
NEA Advocacy (left leaning) $18 Milllion
Congressional Leadership Fund (right leaning) $16 Million
Americans for Responsible Solutions (left leaning) $16 Million
Independence USA (left leaning) $15 Million
Which totals another $49 Million on the left, and $16 Million on the right
The grand total for the top 10 equals $209 Million for the left and $92 Million for the right.
As usual, the devil is in the details and I don't have time to dig deeper, but others can right here
http://realtime.influenceexplorer.com/pacs/#?ordering=-cash_on_hand&committee_class=UO (get the CSV file)
Again though. I think participation is a much bigger problem than money
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
I'm posting here for a couple reasons:
1 - To give people data points to rebut the typical complaints
2 - Am hoping people better than me with excel (and with more time) can dig through that CSV file and get a complete rundown. A difficulty for me was having to check through the committee_url column to discern partisan leaning. Some are difficult, such as Bloomberg's Americans for Responsible Solutions, which is Right on the surface, but not so much in reality.
Another thing I saw while looking around was indications of potential RINO's, such as Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA 8th) who was supported by Bloomberg, The Sierra Club, Everytown For Gun Safety Action Fund, etc...
Onward