Money in Politics

[ronpaulhawaii]

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.co...ittee_class=UO (get the CSV file)

Again though. I think participation is a much bigger problem than money

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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

[CaptUSA]

Again though. I think participation is a much bigger problem than money

The bigger problem is what that money is buying. If government power were properly constrained, the politicians would have nothing to sell.

Foolish democrats always bitch about money in politics, but then they want to give the government more power. If you have the power to decide which businesses survive and which ones are shut down, then of course people are going to try to buy your influence. That's just common sense. The politicians love that game.

[Natural Citizen]

I think I heard like 42 people spent 80% of the money on the republican side of things. Haven't heard about the left yet. Could probably share a complete and absolute breakdown but not sure if I actually feel like it.

[Brian4Liberty]

I think I heard like 42 people spent 80% of the money on the republican side of things. Haven't heard about the left yet. Could probably share a complete and absolute breakdown but not sure if I actually feel like it.

And those big spenders on the "Republican" side are nothing more than crony corporatists playing both sides.

For example:
Jon Huntsman Sr. likes Hillary and Jeb

[Acala]

The bigger problem is what that money is buying. If government power were properly constrained, the politicians would have nothing to sell.

Foolish democrats always bitch about money in politics, but then they want to give the government more power. If you have the power to decide which businesses survive and which ones are shut down, then of course people are going to try to buy your influence. That's just common sense. The politicians love that game.

Exactly. As long as government has the power to make or break billionaires, people will find a way to buy those favors.

[Natural Citizen]

And those big spenders on the "Republican" side are nothing more than crony corporatists playing both sides.

Yep. Well. I don't know, Brian4Liberty. Heh. Money doesn't always guarantee a win. Nope. You know, we just had the chemical companies pour a record 25 million into opposing a single ballot initiative. And, you know, regardless of what the media is telling the drones, we're kicking their rear ends. And then some other folks involved with another similar citizens initiative in the country ended up kicking them off of their home turf all together through organized efforts and a vote. Of course, they were only trying to overcome 8 million dollars or so of corrupt money but they did it by themselves. You see? I mean, I piss and moan about corporate money sometimes but the fact is that it can be defeated. Do or do not and all of that happy stuff. Just cannot fool ourselves into doing what someone else defines as "doing" and stick to yer guns is all.

[CPUd]

There used to be a problem with money in politics, but John McCain got some campaign finance reform measures passed, so now it is OK.

[anaconda]

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.

Good info. Thanks for researching this.

[Occam's Banana]

The bigger problem is what that money is buying. If government power were properly constrained, the politicians would have nothing to sell.

Foolish democrats always bitch about money in politics, but then they want to give the government more power. If you have the power to decide which businesses survive and which ones are shut down, then of course people are going to try to buy your influence. That's just common sense. The politicians love that game.

Exactly. As long as government has the power to make or break billionaires, people will find a way to buy those favors.

Thirded - things like "campaign finance reform" are nothing more than exercises in deck chair rearrangement.

They treat the symptoms while ignoring the disease.

So long as government wields the power to "make or break" special or vested interests, cronyism and influence peddling will persist and pervade.
Until this root cause is eliminated, the only things that can be changed are the particular means adopted by cronies and influence peddlers.

[specsaregood]

bump so I can rep this when the rep system gets fixed.