What happens when the government has a debit crisis or to use an
accounting expression, when our “outflow exceeds our inflow”? In short, the government is spending more than we bringing in? No business can do that for long and stay
afloat, and no ordinary household can survive for long before the bill
collectors come calling. Government has no mandate like the rest of us to follow a strict budget. So what then?
In the case of the United States Government, there is no one coming to bail us out. The government's credit is based on nothing more than its "good faith", which is short for "trust us". Those who own our debt are mostly other countries like Japan ($1.1 trillion), the UK ($690 billion), and China ($749 billion); they're essentially stuck. They have no hard collateral like the Capital Building or Mt. Rushmore to foreclose on and sell off on the steps of the ICC to the highest bidder. The most they can do is ride out the financial storm or throw more money at the problem and hope “we” (that is, the President and Congress) can somehow work it out.
The usual answer is raising interest rates, which increases the cost of borrowing money from the Federal Reserve. This, in turn, typically means a hike in wholesale prices which means, as nearly always, ultimately gets passed on to you and me. As a result, we are the ones who ultimately take the hit for their bad policy decisions and mismanagement.
According to Open Secrets, in 2024 Democrats received $1,163,550,563.
Of that, $1,187,730 came from political action committees (“PACs”). $1,802,512,049
was from individuals. Republicans raised $637,855,365. PACs were responsible
for $1,018,830 while individual contributions made up $581,463,551. The majority
of the money came from corporate donors and very wealthy families, and we can
thank the 2010 Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court for that.
Elon Musk, owner of SpaceX and current satrap of DOGE
(Department of Government Efficiency), for instance gave $291,482,587, all to
the GOP. Timothy Mellon gave $197,047,200
with the overwhelming majority going to the Republican Party as well. Miriam O.
Adelson (owner of the Sands in Las Vegas and the Adelson Drug Clinic) donated $148,304,900,
also to the Republicans.
Michael Bloomberg, the former Mayor of New York, gave $60,839,734
to the Democrats and a token $1 million to the Republicans. Dustin Moskovitz,
owner of Asana, Inc, dropped $50,671,800 to the Democrats as well.
Steve Swartzman of Blackrock Group contributed $40,178,539
to the GOP while Bob Bigelow, owner of Bigelow Industries, gave them $34,990,500.
Reid Garrett Hoffman, owner of LinkedIn, gave the Democrats $28,804,480 and a
polite $400,000 to the Republicans.
These are just a very small sample of the big dollars that
went into the elections of 2024. In addition, most of these groups also donated
money to smaller outside organizations. For instance, Citadel, Inc., a
preeminent multinational hedge fund, amassed $108,669,316 in contributions
(making it the fourth largest corporate donor) spent the bulk of its money on
Republican groups which included Keystone Renewal PAC, American Patriots PAC,
Fix Washington PAC, and the Senate Leadership Fund just to name a few.
Greylock Partners, one of the nation’s oldest venture
capital firms, donated $35,900,577, ranking it the 26th largest
corporate donor, gave all of it to exclusively Democratic related groups that
included WelcomePAC, American Bridge 21st Century, Granite Committee,
and Future Forward USA to name just four.
There were quite a number of PACs (some of which were self-funded
by members such as the NRA and AARP) which made heavy political contributions
as well. Many choose to hedge their bets by contributing to both parties.
However, the lion’s share of their money went to incumbents irrespective of party.
The reason is because, thanks to
partisan gerrymandering and the absence of term limits, 97% of Congressional incumbents
were reelected in 2024. It was the same at the state level. 94% of state
executives were reelected as were 92% of state judicial incumbents. Those are
better percentage than even the old Soviet Politburo had!
Another reasons Congress couldn’t privately care less about
voter opinion is that the majority are millionaires. They don’t need the job.
This is basically about acquiring power and making connections, and if you can
pick up a few extra million along the way, well so be it. Let’s take a look.
As of 2024, there were 13,043 lobbyists operating in
Washington, mostly along “K” Street, which employs roughly 100,000 researchers,
analysist, public relations and media specialists, data entry, and others
needed to support the influence industry while many of the lobbyists themselves
are former legislators or senior staffers.
Despite that number, much of the business is handled by just
300 firms. Most represent corporations, trade associations, and unions. In that same year---2024---they invested just
over $4.43 billion dollars to get their message (and candidate) across the
finish line.
Unfortunately, those that represent ordinary working class Americans are few and far between. Corporate donors, on average, give close to ten dollars for every two unions contribute and, in an election related crunch, they’re quite capable of ponying up a lot more, further dwarfing anything unions can come up with.
Lastly, and I want to be clear about this, you can bet your house, your children, or whatever else you hold dear, that money of this magnitude isn't given to be "patriotic" or be seen as being a "responsible citizen". It's an investment like any other. They intend on getting their money's worth and then some from this "investment" and when it (or they) cease to be useful, they'll quickly move on and find another that is. I suppose you could think of primaries as political search engine of sorts; a way to find the next compatible cog for the machine.
Another reason voters get a yawn, as noted above, is due to
partisan gerrymandering. President John Adams originally said that
redistricting should provide an “exact portrait, a miniature” of the nation as
whole. He would be deeply disappointed
to see what redistricting has become. Every ten years states are supposed to
redraw their legislative and Congressional districts following the results of
the census so that voter demographics are properly represented, but that’s not
what has happened.
Attempts to reform redistricting has typically run into stone
wall erected by both parties in order to protect “their” political turf. A case
in point was the 2019 Supreme Court’s Rucho v. Common Cause decision is a great example. Although the Constitution and the Voting
Rights Act of 1965 prohibit racial discrimination, the court decided that while
partisan gerrymandering was “incompatible with democratic principles”, it could
not be addressed at the federal level! That meant returning to the state which
was responsible for the situation to begin with and leaving the matter
unresolved.
A few states have taken the bold step of taking the power to
gerrymander out of the hands of the state legislators and assigned them to
non-partisan institutions such as universities and colleges on a rotating basis
or independent commissions, but don’t expect to see this spread nationwide
until voters stage a ballot box revolt and start automatically voting against
the sitting party in that district.
The absence of term limits is another main reason members of
Congress (and the federal judiciary) doesn’t particularly care about voter
opinions. Image having a job where no matter how crappy of a job you do, you
won’t get fired. Well, that’s Congress and judiciary. How’s that possible?
Well, thanks to a political system which has been corrupted to
the point where vested interests financially underwrite the campaigns of those
who are to regulate them, where they fill party coffers, write the legislation
which affects them, where districts are redrawn to give one group a perpetual
partisan majority over another, make decisions contrary to the interests of the
people they’re supposed to represent, and then ensures that they can serve
almost indefinitely.
Americans want an end to a corrupt system which caps the President
to two four year terms while giving Congress unlimited terms and the federal judiciary
life appointments. Even at the individual
state level, voters want to see term limits. In Kentucky it’s 84%. In Maine it’s
75%. 84% in Montana. 75% in Utah. 80% in Georgia. 77% in Florida, and 78% in
Alaska.
This is the political system we now have. It isn’t the
Republic envisioned by the Founders of this country of a limited government or
one run by and for “citizen legislators”. This is the vision of our new Founders, the ultra-wealthy Oligarchs,
and the creation of a neo-fascist corporatocracy, leaving us with a “managed limited
democracy” and a surveillance state. President Trump may try to restore the
Republic, or what’s lefts of it, but the corruption has become institutionalized,
and both sides benefit from it. The only
losers are those for whom the nation was created----its citizens. Welcome to
our new reality.
Thank you for reading
"Another Opinion", the Op/Ed blog page for the "militant
middle". Here at "A/O" we truly value our readers. At
A/O we seek the facts as they exist, not partisan talking points. We
hope you find our articles informative and engaging. Comments are welcome,
provided they are not vulgar, insulting or demeaning. Another
Opinion is offered without charge and is directed toward all independent and
free-thinking individuals. We ask, however, that you "like" us on
whatever platform you found us on in order to keep our articles available for
free to others. Lastly, in order to keep costs down, we depend on passive
marketing, and therefore, depend on our readers to please forward our posts
along. Below you will find links to the sources we used in writing this
article. Thank you.
Rucho v. Common Cause 18-422 588 U.S. 684 (2019)
Election results,2024: Incumbents wins by state
Tomboulides Testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee
No comments:
Post a Comment