Cody Hatch writes that a cap on donations won't get excessive money out of politics. What will, he argues, is a cap on politicians' power.
-- Tim Machesney
IT'S NOT THE MONEY -- IT'S THE POWER
by Cody Hatch
MANY PEOPLE VIEW the ridiculous amounts of money spent on political campaigns as a problem. They rightly believe that campaign donations from various special-interest groups buys favors from a candidate should he or she be elected to office, and in short, believe the contributors are expecting a return on their investment. But while supporters of campaign finance reform are doing well to try and limit the influence of special interest groups in our political process, they are off the mark. The problem is not special interest money in politics. That's just a result of the problem. The problem is the far-reaching extent of government -- and the power that a politician wields over the lives of his or her constituents.
Let's be honest with ourselves. The people who are contributing $22 million in one day to political campaigns -- as happened with a Republican fundraiser in late May featuring President Bush -- are not your average Americans. They are not a "grass-roots movement" like many politicians are fond of saying. They represent various special interests, and are contributing that money seeking a return on that investment. These same folks that can plop down $25,000 at a dinner are shrewd investors, and would not plop that same amount of cash down for say, Cody's Widgets Inc. Why would they be willing to fork over that kind of cash for a political campaign? Why are contributors as a whole willing to plop $175 million on the table to get Bush elected, as this article in The Washington Times notes?
You could say that they are greedy capitalists looking to play the system for a profit, which may or may not be true. The emotional reaction is to ban the contributions, place limits on them, or harangue the contributors as greedy, but all of those reactions would not strike at the source of the problem. Contributors are willing to give Bush $175 million because they know he can help their special interest. And lest anyone think this applies solely to Republicans, don't forget that the nine Democratic presidential candidates have hauled in nearly $25 million over the past three months.
Those who think the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill actually works, you may sit down now.
The solution to the special interest problem, and the money and political favors that come along with it, is to limit the size and scope of government. If a politician does not have the ability to provide tax loopholes to an organization, or to provide legislation such as the farm bill, or to use the EPA to hold citizens and businesses hostage, special interest groups will have no incentive to offer him or her money for favors. We must, through the voting booth, enforce term limits upon our polticians, lest their interest (remaining in power), diverge from our interest (staying out from under their thumb). What politician will hose his constituents if he knows he'll be among them shortly? If a politician has the means to grant favors, he or she will receive favors in return, and has the incentive to stay in power to keep the gravy train rolling.
How does one stay in power in the United States? Ensure that those who vote you into office have a vested interest in continuing to do so. How to ensure that? Make certain that their subsistence requires you to be in office. Witness the myriad social programs that require "progessive" candidates to be in office in order to continue. If you benefit from those, you have a vested interest in keeping someone in office who will continue to grant them to you.
Take a look at corporate welfare. Recipients of such welfare, like the airlines, have a vested interest in keeping their candidate in office. What about government workers? Same story. They need politicians who will continue to expand government. They won't vote themselves out of a job.
We, as Americans concerned with the direction of our political process need to direct our efforts at the source of the problem, and campaign finance is not that source; big, over-reaching government is. Without the tools to give out favors, politicians will not sell themselves to the highest bidder, and political contributors will have no incentive to fork over millions of dollars to politicians. We must work to reduce the size and scope of government, and we must force, through elections, political turnover to ensure that a politician's interests do not diverge from constituent interests.
Mr. Hatch writes for PrudentPolitics.org, where a version of this entry was originally published.
I am amazed that such an obvious point rarely is discussed. Heaven forbid our politicians would give up power.
Sorry, but I believe Mr. Hatch is dreaming a little. Here's why:
What politician will hose his constituents if he knows he'll be among them shortly?
Gray Davis springs to mind. He has been term limited since he was first elected Governor of California--he has hosed them but good. Why? I think a combination of; plenty of enabling law, his own belief in the power of POWER, and further political ambition.
"...and we must force, through elections, political turnover to ensure that a politician's interests do not diverge from constituent interests."
Perhaps this would work generally. However, what about all the enabling law still in place, along with the surviving (and ongoing) bureaucratic structure now carrying it out? And, in most cases, there are other kinds of interest groups. Care to think of the number and depth of lawsuits involved in closing the EPA, for example?
I think the problem Mr. Hatch address--and he is certainly on the right track--is the intractable one of human nature. You might call it Better-living-through-legislation. Everybody seems to want something from the government, so there grows an infrastructure only too glad to supply it. For a price.
When two kids are fighting over a toy where ownership is unclear, a prudent parent will take the toy away. In the case of government power and special interests, however, I couldn't agree more with the same approach. Wealthy contrbutors and corporations will not try to buy government if there is nothing to buy. On the other hand, constituents will see no reason to re-elect representatives year after year if the pork-barrel projects and social handouts they provide were to go away.
In the same way that a free society connotes minimal government interference in the personal sphere, a free market connotes minimal government interference into business, except in cases of fraud, theft, personal injury or other violations of individual liberties. Maybe that's just the radical in me, since I don't believe that the corporate model of business is legal, since corporations aren't individuals and, as such, can have no rights. But that's a different argument.
Strom Thurmond stayed in office because he got his constituents what they wanted. Same with Jessie Helms. Same with Ted Kennedy. Limit what they can deliver and limit their terms, and I think democracy would become much more interesting again.
I think eliminating the franchise for all govt. workers for the duration of their employment would go a LONG way towards restoring what's left of the Republic to it's proper balance.
What govt. worker is EVER going to vote to pick my pocket less?
Thanks for the comments and feedback. It's good to see some discussion on this important issue.
About disenfranchising public workers, I also wrote an article calling for the same thing.
http://www.prudentpolitics.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=77&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
I disagree with Cody on some things. I don't actually believe that campaign contributors, for the most part, are expecting a return-on-investment. I think most of them are just honestly giving money to candidates whose ideas and beliefs they agree with.
I may have to write an article about this, because I'm quite serious.
"Now the sole remedy for the abuse of the political power is to limit it; but when politics corrupt business, modern reformers invariably demand the enlargement of the political power." -- Isabel Paterson, The God Of The Machine,, 1943.
"There are two passions which have a powerful influence on the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice: the love of power, and the love of money. Separately, each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but when united in view of the same object, they have in many minds the most violent effects." - Benjamin Franklin
If I were doing it, I would take a leaf from the "Little Golden Book of Big Green Interference." Case in point? The Endangered Species act. Small law in the beginning, leading to serious bureaucratic control & abuse, lawsuits hobbling if not devastating whole areas of commerce, and a huge fundraising network to get and channel...campaign contributions.
I would work for enabling law(s) designed to allow private individuals and groups to work to break the Law-->Bureaucracy-->Control-->Lawsuit-->Further control-->Political Contribution cycle. Two current examples are; the Medical Savings Account renewal/expansion now in the House version of the Medicare act (but not in the Senate's). Healthcare needs to stay mostly private in this country, and certainly needs to become portable. The second example is tort reform, such as the "Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption" act sponsored by Congressman Rick Keller of Florida. Lest cookies become as Camels.
Other areas begging for accountability are junk science in the courts, political action by tax exempts, and nusance lawsuits designed to stifle certain speech.
Either that or one small amendment to the Constitution...
Congress shall make no law respecting commerce or trade.
Cody may be right: people giving money to politicians are investors, and they expect a return on their investment.
Dean may be right: people giving money to politicians may be supporting candidates whose beliefs agree with their own.
But if strict term limits reduced the amount of power politicians have over us, they would take care of the core problem, whether Cory's interpretation or Dean's is closer to the truth.
Term-limiting Gray Davis was not sufficient because other officeholders, who control the rest of the state machinery were not term-limited as well.
Dean said,"I think most of them are just honestly giving money to candidates whose ideas and beliefs they agree with."
Individuals perhaps, but they're not the propblem.
When I was Director of Operations for a national company they actually would tell us how to identify local and state politicians who they could then "contribute" to through various groups that were set up as nothing more then fronts to funnel money from our company to politicians and they not only expected a return, if one wasn't forthcoming they would make no secret that next election the opponent would be getting the money (unless the candidate was a lock and then they would simply up the anti.)
In fact we got a DoD contract out of the deal in Atlanta while I was there for just that reason. We netted 1.4 million for a project that had nothing to do with Defense at all. It was just garden verity pork. The problem is that the corporations that fund campaigns don’t want the situation to change, they like it just fine. You all talk about government workers, let me tell you, that’s a drop in the bucket. The suppliers to the federal government make huge amounts of money from contracts for everything from paper clips to transportation. Think about stuff like the farm bill, who gets that money? A lot of it goes to large agricultural companies like Archer Daniels Midland. You will never get elected in a farm state if you try to mess with agricultural subsidies. The ADM people will be on the street paying people to protest. Big oil will get close to 8 billion in direct government subsidies this year, why would they want to shrink government?
The banking industry, the medical lobby, lawyers, entertainment, big oil and both parties are up to their nostrils in it. Shrink the power of government? OK sure but if you think GE and ADM is going to be on your side in that fight your naive. Big business and big government go hand and hand. One of the problems I see with the current crop of conservatives is that they correctly point out the problems of big government but don’t seem to understand that the reason big government is so big is because of the influence of big business. They accept a quasi Randian idea of companies as noble players in the free market system when nothing could be farther from the truth. Large companies don’t want a free market any more then Marx did, they want to buy in free markets but they want sell to closed markets where that are the lone seller. And typically they will get government to do their dirty work anytime they can.
A lot of what people like to rail against, things like health and safety laws, are just fine by big companies. GE loves OSHA. Oh not the lower level plant manager, because it might affect his bottom line directly, but the executives realize that needless regulation raises the cost for pain in the ass competitors to enter the market. So while your working on figuring out how to shrink the size of government take a good long look at who give the bulk of the money to political parties in the largest blocks. The top 5 industries for each party are the ones driving the agenda and voters are often workers who realize what side of the bread is buttered. If you work in the Defense industry, then you are for increasing defense regardless if its necessary or not. If you're in entertainment then goofy laws to protect your profits are spun as protection of property.
What most of you are saying is good; just make sure you address the entire equation because you will get nowhere focusing exclusively on government as the problem. Big government, big industry, big anything has the potential to skew the power balance in counterproductive ways. Having said all this the typical response I get from corporate apologists is that corporations are just helpless players in the evil political game that is thrust upon them. I suspect I will hear that line in this discussion. If you really believe that then the problem will never get fixed, but if you understand that all concentrations of power have an equal potential for harm then we have a fighting chance.
Rick -
You make a good point about the rent-seeking performed by corporations, but I think you overstate the case a little. Big Corporate doesn't have power because it's a giant multi-national. It has power because it buys influence in the political realm. The only way industry can truly protect itself from competition is with the help of government (i.e. legalized force). Once a business gets enough market share, it inevitably will look to protect that share -- or someone with the power to do so will come along with an offer.
The point is that by truly limiting the amount of power to wield (e.g. being able to award sole-source contracts, or to legalize a cable monopoly) there is nothing for Big Corporate to buy. As a result, it will only be Big Corporate if there is an economy of scale, or some other efficiency.
Another point that I haven't seen made is that where a small percentage of the population pays the majority of the country's taxes there will be a greater influence of money on politics. That is, where the top 1% of earners pays 50% of the taxes, it reasonable and likely to expect that 1% to demand something for their money. Certainly there is some correlation between the current progressive income tax and the influence of money in politics.
I should have added that I with Mr. Hatch's post re term-limits and the reduction of power in government. Those who are in office for only a short time have less of an incentive to concentrate power that can be used against them once they are under the whip.
Term limits, right.
Big org; gov't, union, corp -- likely corrupt, right.
Reduce gov't power, right.
...but how?
On the spending side. Most voters want benefits, from the gov't, using Other People's Money.
I suggest exchanging "grant" benefits with gov't tax loans -- to be recorded as a loan, and repaid through current taxes plus a surtax on income (turnover) above average.
Example: $20 000/ year education tax loan. After 4 years, graduate owes $80 000. His income tax goes to reduce this, yearly, and it is recorded, just like a loan. PLUS, if he makes more than the average ($30 k?), he pays some surtax, say 10%, on that amount, which also goes to reduce the tax loan.
The point is to keep track of the many gov't benefits, and put them in tax loan accounts, so that more middle class folk honestly pay for their own benefits.
Which, I claim, will go a long way towards reducing the DEMAND for gov't benefits/ gov't power.