Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Campaign contributions buy something
From the RoundTable blog
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Karl Balliet
Balliet is a retired chemist living in Bedford.
The Roanoke Times recently published a commentary by Mike Schrimpf from the Center for Competitive Politics about the financing of political campaigns ("A free system of campaign finance," Sept. 6). I looked the center up on the Internet and found that it was founded and is run by Bradley A. Smith, a far-right conservative strongly opposed to government financing of political campaigns. Smith claims that massive contributions from large corporations and industrial groups do not influence congressmen.
Schrimpf has selected some reports that say that money does not corrupt the political processes, and that legislators vote according to their own beliefs. He also quotes from a report that says that government financing, which is available in a few states, has a negative effect on whether people believe they have a say in their government.
There are lots of reports available from many sources with a wide range of views, from very liberal to very conservative. By selecting only those that agree with his own, he is not directly lying, but he is being deceitful by not telling the whole truth.
I was easily able to find reports that were opposite those he quoted. In The Washington Spectator of April 1, 2006, Bill Moyers had a three-page report on getting money out of politics. Among other things, he noted that Congress had passed legislation giving oil companies large tax breaks at the same time that ExxonMobil made $36.13 billion in profits in one year; a bankruptcy "reform" bill that made it harder for poor debtors to escape the burdens of divorce or medical catastrophe; and a bill that allowed overpricing of pharmaceutical drugs. This March, "60 Minutes" gave a report on prescription drug prices, which are higher in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world.
The report noted that "congressmen are outnumbered two to one by lobbyists for an industry [pharmaceuticals] that spends roughly $100 million per year in campaign contributions and lobbying expenses." And a bill passed by Congress "prohibited Medicare and the federal government from using its vast purchasing power to negotiate lower prices directly from the drug companies." Consequently, Medicare patients have to pay nearly 60 percent more than veterans pay because the Department of Veterans Affairs had previously negotiated lower prices.
Things like this are happening because legislators certainly are influenced by campaign contributions.
They know very well that they need a lot of money to get re-elected and that, many times, the one who can buy the most TV time and other types of publicity will win. They also know that if they vote against the interests of the big contributors, they will not receive enough big contributions to get re-elected.
This amounts to a system of legalized bribery and should be changed. The opponents of government financing for elections try to make an issue of how much it would cost the taxpayers. They do not talk about how much it costs those same taxpayers to pay the higher prices charged by the corporations who have received legislative benefits. These costs are far higher than the cost of government financing.
