I personally have passed my limit on this issue. From Tom DeLay to Duke Cunningham, there are an extraordinary number of congressional men and women who are under suspicion, investigation, indictment or conviction for corruption. Duke is just the first that got caught trading money and perks for no bid military contracts. Some was out right bribery, but much of it was in the form of campaign donations. That is a pretty fertile field if serious investigations are ever done, because these no-bid contracts are becoming a large part of expenditures. DeLay is different. He was trying to corner the market, so to speak, on campaign donations in exchange for desired legislation. he also has gone after the lobbying market, openly punishing companies for using other than Republican lobbyists. In addition, it looks as if he was tightly bound up in Abramoff's little den of thieves funneling money into the Republican party in exchange for legislative favors for Abramoff's clients.
This isn't just a Republican issue, although DeLay and company have brought it to a high art form. There are plenty of Democrats who are willing to engage in this behaviour, although their markets are pretty depressed, what is the point of bribing a Democrat? Not only are they pretty helpless to get stuff done, it risks getting DeLay pissed at you and he was pretty willing to make people's lives miserable...
The real issue is the cost of running a campaign. A politician who wants to get elected is in the position of trying to get other people to give them money without having a lot of strings attached. While things like the Internet and mass mailings enable this to be done to an extent, a campaign is almost certainly going to need those big checks that some individuals and many companies can write. And they, not unreasonably I might add, often expect something for their investment. Usually it is because they think a candidate's over all approach and stance on issues will benefit them. But sometimes they have something more directly beneficial in mind.
It is not like this is a new problem. And it very well may be that things have been worse in the past. I do know that things are pretty bad right now. We know the solution, public funding of campaigns. We went over this issue a couple of decades back, that is why there is that little check box on your income tax form. Even that little bit was a tough fight. Incumbents in general hate the idea of a level playing field. The Republicans in particular don't like it because their strong point has always been their ability to get corporate donations.
But we have to do something. The corrupting influence of donations are pushing it further and further away from the interests of most of our citizens and allow special interest groups to dominate the agenda. And this has to stop. By taking donations out of the equation, we can make the system work better for the country as a whole. |
