Campaign donations.

[Boss]

I don't really think the issue is making money less important of an influence on politicians , but rather recognizing it is a factor which tanslates into power and hence puting a limit on it.

And here is where I think you are wrong. money translates to power when you have people motivated by money instead of character and integrity. An elected representative has tremendous power already, but he/she is supposed to be persons of integrity and good character.

The only "fair" limit you can put on campaign finance is to disallow it all. By trying to hunt and peck around, you are disenfranchising people and their right to political free speech while making others more influential and important.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

He was impeached for lying under oath.
Lost his law license as well.

...about a blowjob...ah man , I wish he had just said. Yea, Monica, best bjob in my life... sory Hillary.

You don't get to lie under oath.
He settled the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit for $850,000.

 

[CultureCitizen]

Now under campaign laws for the past gazillion years, I can donate a set amount to you and so can my employees, we can all make individual contributions to your campaign. But my employees have asked me if we can do more? We have the corporate resources to produce videos and buy air time that individuals simply don't have. Why can't my group use the resources we have available to achieve what is in our vital interest? CFR restricted that, the SCOTUS said NO!

Ok, I find no problem in producing videos and... uploading them to youtube and using social media to promote them.
Even if a channel wants to donate some air time ( ja ) to air the video. Or even having the company pay for the air time.
As long as there is no sizeable amount of money exchange between the candidate and the donnor.

Now, putting more resources than the individuals . why ?

Lets assume that pro American widget candidate happens to be a pro-fracking advocate, and while I will certainly beneffit from having a stable job in a flourishing company from which I get excelent raises every year, I have decided I do not like the fracking industry and I do not wish to support the candidate.
But now my single voice as an employee turns into a squeak as I am faced with the enormous resources gathered by the company, even if I convince the rest of my co-workers that they should not donate to candidate A, the decision of the corporation will not change.

And that is my point, unlimited donations diminish the power of the average guy.

So again from my point of view the principle of one person = one vote gets violated when such large sums of money are at stake.

 

[CultureCitizen]

And here is where I think you are wrong. money translates to power when you have people motivated by money instead of character and integrity. An elected representative has tremendous power already, but he/she is supposed to be persons of integrity and good character.

The only "fair" limit you can put on campaign finance is to disallow it all. By trying to hunt and peck around, you are disenfranchising people and their right to political free speech while making others more influential and important.

I can live with disallowing donations, fair enough.

Character and integrity , I also agree with that, if politicians had more of it every country in the world would be better off.
To expect such a behavior form most politicians seems unreal. I would rather start by asuming what free markets assume: that individuals are fueled by self-interest.

 

[Andylusion]

Only a liberal, or an idiot, but then I repeat myself, would claim that the result of Sarbanes-Oxley
and Dodd-Frank has been "ever more relaxed rules for banks".

Oh man, did you get anything of the article at all ?
The house of representatives passed a bill thwarting the push.out rule.

"If this measure becomes law, these banks will be able to use FDIC-insured money to bet on nearly anything they want. And if there's another economic downturn, they can count on a taxpayer bailout of their derivatives trading business."

Citigroup Wrote the Wall Street Giveaway The House Just Approved Mother Jones

8216 Enough is enough 8217 Elizabeth Warren launches fiery attack after Congress weakens Wall Street regs - The Washington Post

If that isn't enough to convince you of the rampant cleptocratic influence the banks are exerting in the government, you can read this article by David Stockman "director of office and management" under Reagan, not by far a left winged person.

Memo To Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat Does Your Crony Capitalist Plunder Know No Shame David Stockman s Contra Corner

Ugh.... if you want to stop Crony Capitalism, the target to aim at is not the glass buildings down town, it's the capital.

As long as politicians are willing to give out money.... all the rules in the world won't solve anything.

Have you dealt with an Alcoholic? Ever been to an AA meeting? I had co-worker who was an alcoholic, and got cleaned up. One the key rules of the game is, you can't bail them out into cleaning up their lives. You can't give them a bunch of rules. You can't make enough hoops for them to jump through, that they figure out how to live sober.

The way an alcoholic generally figures out they have to change, is when everyone lets them go, let's them fall, and when they hit rock bottom, and they have no one to blame (because no one was interfering in their life), then they figure out they have to live differently.

But if you bail them out... if you pay their electric bill, they'll just drink even more... because now they don't have to worry about electricity. If you pay their gas, they'll drink even more... because now they don't have to worry about heat. If you pay their mortgage or rent, they'll just drink even more... because now they don't have to worry about being evicted.

No amount of rules is going to change their behavior. Only letting them fail, changes their behavior.

Banking.... is inherently about risk. There is no "risk-free" banking system. The only way you can regulate risk out of the banking system, is by eliminating the banking system. Anyone that suggests to you that all we need is the right regulation, and no one will ever fail again.... is a moron wrapped up in an idiot.

There is only one single method that will force banks to act more prudently. Let them fail. Until the government is willing to let the banks fail... like Lehman Brothers... nothing will change. Did you ever wonder why AIG crashed, and the market didn't even blink? Or why Bear Stearns failed, and the market barely noticed? But then when Lehman Brothers failed... suddenly there was a crash in the market.

Why? You talk about risky 'toxic' assets, right? Why didn't everyone freak out when AIG was doing CDSs on them? Why did they not freak out when Bear Stearns crashed? Obviously, that should have signaled that the assets were bad, right? Why did no one in the market freak?

At this point we can make some broad assumptions of idiocy. Perhaps everyone was mildly insane? Perhaps all the experts and professional bankers all forgot how to do math over the last 50 years? Maybe Y2K screwed up all their calculators? There is no logical explanation of this.

Which leads me to suggest an alternate theory. Maybe..... there was no risk. How is that possible? Well let's look at Bear Stearns. How much did the creditors of Bear Stearns lose? Answer.... 0. They lost nothing. They got paid back in full. 100¢ on the dollar. How much did the creditors of AIG lose? Answer.... 0. They lost nothing. 100% pay back.

So.... how "risky" were the "high risk investments" in reality? Zero risk. They were not risky at all.

Between the point in time that Bear Stearns failed, and the time that Lehman Brothers failed..... Lehmans Brothers balance sheet actually GREW. The amount that people lent to Lehman Brothers went UP. Even though Bear Stearns who had the exact same sub-prime assets, failed. Again, how can that be?

Because the government bailed out Bear Stearns. All the people who loaned Bear Stearns money, got all their money back!

So what "risk" was there in the market? Zero risk. These "toxic assets" had zero risk!

Be honest for a moment. You are an investor in 2007. You want to invest in something with a high rate of return. A broker comes to you and says, we have this "high interest investment", and if the investment succeeds, you'll get a huge return, and if the investment fails, the government will do a bailout, and you'll get all your money back. Best case, you make huge returns, worst case, you get your money back. Do you do the investment? Especially if you see that the government does bailout the banks? Most people.... Yes.

That's why the market didn't have any reaction to the crash of sub-prime loans. Until..... the government didn't bailout Lehman brothers. Then suddenly, everyone realized.... these assets ARE risky! Suddenly investors were refusing to buy sub-prime mortgage backed securities. Suddenly people stopped making sub-prime loans. Suddenly the market saw the risk, and corrected.

Unfortunately, the government turned right around, and bailed out everyone else, basically reversing the whole lesson that was being taught.

The problem with the leftist perspective, is that you want banks to somehow be "regulated" into good behavior. You want banks to learn the prudence that comes from failure.... without the failure. That's like trying to teach an alcoholic to have temperance, without suffering any consequences from his actions.

You let the banks fail, and you won't have to have any regulations. You can have all the regulations on the planet, and without letting them fail, they'll do the same thing over and over again.

We have the most regulated banking system in the world. You talk about Glass-Steagal, and yet none of the rest of the world has ever had Glass-Steagal regulations, yet the problem started here, and not anywhere else. We have more regulations than the UK, more than the EU. More than Asia. More than Canada or Mexico. Yet the problem started here.

If regulations were the solution, then the US should have been the last country on the planet, to have a bank failure.

 

[CultureCitizen]

We have the most regulated banking system in the world. You talk about Glass-Steagal, and yet none of the rest of the world has ever had Glass-Steagal regulations, yet the problem started here, and not anywhere else. We have more regulations than the UK, more than the EU. More than Asia. More than Canada or Mexico. Yet the problem started here.

If regulations were the solution, then the US should have been the last country on the planet, to have a bank failure.

I have no problem letting the banks fail.
Similar problems have occured in LA, the argentinian corralito and mexico's fobaproa, they happened before Dubya's crisis ( although the exact nature of these crisis is different). The evil scheme of Mexico's bank rescue should have served as an example of what was comming to the US.
That such events happened in a third world country with a state.party which had been in power for more than half a century doesn't surprise me .
What really gets me is that this happens in a long standing democracy which defends justice and free market.

The bottom line is this : let the government do its thing without the intervention of third parties.
If corporations and unions feel their liberty of expression is being suppressed I am fine with having no donations at all: Give the parties 70 million USD per year from the budget and let them figure how to run a campaign with that.

Fobaproa - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

We have the most regulated banking system in the world. You talk about Glass-Steagal, and yet none of the rest of the world has ever had Glass-Steagal regulations, yet the problem started here, and not anywhere else. We have more regulations than the UK, more than the EU. More than Asia. More than Canada or Mexico. Yet the problem started here.

If regulations were the solution, then the US should have been the last country on the planet, to have a bank failure.

I have no problem letting the banks fail.
Similar problems have occured in LA, the argentinian corralito and mexico's fobaproa, they happened before Dubya's crisis ( although the exact nature of these crisis is different).

The bottom line is this : let the government do its thing without the intervention of third parties.
If corporations and unions feel their liberty of expression is being suppressed I am fine with having no donations at all: Give the parties 70 million USD per year from the budget and let them figure how to run a campaign with that.

let the government do its thing without the intervention of third parties.

The federal government is spending what, 21% of GDP? And collecting almost 18% of GDP.
That's money raised from "third parties".
The "third parties" want to defend themselves.

 

[CultureCitizen]

The federal government is spending what, 21% of GDP? And collecting almost 18% of GDP.
That's money raised from "third parties".
The "third parties" want to defend themselves.

Democracy is a form of government where citizens choose and replace the government through free and fair elections.
Democracy - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Corporatocracy/ˌkɔrpərəˈtɒkrəsi/, is a term used as an economic and political system controlled by corporations and/or corporate interests.[1] It is a generally pejorative term often used by critics of the current economic situation in a particular country, especially the United States

Corporatocracy - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

It would be more straightforward if every vote was sold at 1 dollar, and the winning party got to keep all the money as part of the budget , then there would be no problem with tax revenues.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

The federal government is spending what, 21% of GDP? And collecting almost 18% of GDP.
That's money raised from "third parties".
The "third parties" want to defend themselves.

Democracy is a form of government where citizens choose and replace the government through free and fair elections.
Democracy - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Corporatocracy/ˌkɔrpərəˈtɒkrəsi/, is a term used as an economic and political system controlled by corporations and/or corporate interests.[1] It is a generally pejorative term often used by critics of the current economic situation in a particular country, especially the United States

Corporatocracy - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

It would be more straightforward if every vote was sold at 1 dollar, and the winning party got to keep all the money as part of the budget , then there would be no problem with tax revenues.

citizens choose and replace the government through free and fair elections.

Limiting challengers with $100 donations isn't fair.

 

[Boss]

It would be more straightforward if every vote was sold at 1 dollar, and the winning party got to keep all the money as part of the budget , then there would be no problem with tax revenues.

Another solution was suggested by Walter E. Williams, professor of economics at George Mason. He said we should give votes based on how much tax you pay. Everyone would get one vote for just being an American citizen eligible to vote. From $1-100k in taxes get another vote. A million in taxes, you get three votes. Ten million or more, you get four.

Now his argument causes liberals to bristle, but when you consider the way large corporations operate, this is how things go. The largest shareholders have the most votes.

 

[Boss]

citizens choose and replace the government through free and fair elections.

Limiting challengers with $100 donations isn't fair.

Excellent point. Once you are elected, there is a certain 'benefit of incumbancy' gained which we can't place a monetary value on. Once elected, those with limited funding can't unseat you, even if your own funding is limited too. By limiting campaign contributions you are effectively establishing MORE power to be exploited by a corrupt individual. Now their influence is even MORE valuable because no one can unseat them.

 

[CultureCitizen]

Another solution was suggested by Walter E. Williams, professor of economics at George Mason. He said we should give votes based on how much tax you pay. Everyone would get one vote for just being an American citizen eligible to vote. From $1-100k in taxes get another vote. A million in taxes, you get three votes. Ten million or more, you get four.

Now his argument causes liberals to bristle, but when you consider the way large corporations operate, this is how things go. The largest shareholders have the most votes.

Well, although this gets us closer to a corporatocracy than to a true democracy , this system at least is :
A) Honest - No quid pro quo negotiations under the table
B) Straightforward -Just look at the cumulative taxes you've paid.
C) Auditable - As auditable as taxes go.

Finally as it seems to be logarithmic it isn't as inequitable as it seems at first sight.

 

[CultureCitizen]

Excellent point. Once you are elected, there is a certain 'benefit of incumbancy' gained which we can't place a monetary value on. Once elected, those with limited funding can't unseat you, even if your own funding is limited too. By limiting campaign contributions you are effectively establishing MORE power to be exploited by a corrupt individual. Now their influence is even MORE valuable because no one can unseat them.

Intuitively , I think you are correct in this point.
Nevertheless, I would have to compare the incumbent reelection rates of the US vs another democratic country which does not allow contributions to see if this theory checks with reallity.
I'll have a follow up post once I have finished my research.

 

[Boss]

Excellent point. Once you are elected, there is a certain 'benefit of incumbancy' gained which we can't place a monetary value on. Once elected, those with limited funding can't unseat you, even if your own funding is limited too. By limiting campaign contributions you are effectively establishing MORE power to be exploited by a corrupt individual. Now their influence is even MORE valuable because no one can unseat them.

Intuitively , I think you are correct in this point.
Nevertheless, I would have to compare the incumbent reelection rates of the US vs another democratic country which does not allow contributions to see if this theory checks with reallity.
I'll have a follow up post once I have finished my research.

Every statistic you'll find will bear out the fact that incumbents are more likely to win elections. They have name recognition, they are the elected official, when they hold press conferences the news is there to report on it. Meanwhile, Joe Blow who is challenging with restricted donations, has to set himself on fire to make the news. The point Todd raises is very important, our Constitution calls for free and fair elections. You're making it less fair and tilting the table in more favor of the incumbent by restricting the amount on campaign contributions. This moves us away from democracy and toward an oligarchy.

 

[dblack]

Excellent point. Once you are elected, there is a certain 'benefit of incumbancy' gained which we can't place a monetary value on. Once elected, those with limited funding can't unseat you, even if your own funding is limited too. By limiting campaign contributions you are effectively establishing MORE power to be exploited by a corrupt individual. Now their influence is even MORE valuable because no one can unseat them.

Intuitively , I think you are correct in this point.
Nevertheless, I would have to compare the incumbent reelection rates of the US vs another democratic country which does not allow contributions to see if this theory checks with reallity.
I'll have a follow up post once I have finished my research.

Every statistic you'll find will bear out the fact that incumbents are more likely to win elections. They have name recognition, they are the elected official, when they hold press conferences the news is there to report on it. Meanwhile, Joe Blow who is challenging with restricted donations, has to set himself on fire to make the news. The point Todd raises is very important, our Constitution calls for free and fair elections. You're making it less fair and tilting the table in more favor of the incumbent by restricting the amount on campaign contributions. This moves us away from democracy and toward an oligarchy.

He'll be looking for the effect policies limiting campaign contributions have on the incumbency advantage. I've never dug around for that. Should be interesting. I think he'll probably find evidence that some schemes, particularly state funded campaigns, do curtail the dominance of incumbents. But it comes at the price of putting government in charge of which alternatives we can choose from (who will qualify for funding).

 

[Andylusion]

We have the most regulated banking system in the world. You talk about Glass-Steagal, and yet none of the rest of the world has ever had Glass-Steagal regulations, yet the problem started here, and not anywhere else. We have more regulations than the UK, more than the EU. More than Asia. More than Canada or Mexico. Yet the problem started here.

If regulations were the solution, then the US should have been the last country on the planet, to have a bank failure.

I have no problem letting the banks fail.
Similar problems have occured in LA, the argentinian corralito and mexico's fobaproa, they happened before Dubya's crisis ( although the exact nature of these crisis is different). The evil scheme of Mexico's bank rescue should have served as an example of what was comming to the US.
That such events happened in a third world country with a state.party which had been in power for more than half a century doesn't surprise me .
What really gets me is that this happens in a long standing democracy which defends justice and free market.

The bottom line is this : let the government do its thing without the intervention of third parties.
If corporations and unions feel their liberty of expression is being suppressed I am fine with having no donations at all: Give the parties 70 million USD per year from the budget and let them figure how to run a campaign with that.

Fobaproa - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Again, that won't change anything.

Just as it didn't work in France, it most certainly won't work here.

So I'm the stereotypical corrupt politician. You gather the public together, and pass a law banning donations.

But I'm a corrupt politician. I didn't follow the campaign laws before. I'm certainly not going to follow them after.

So I accept money from companies, and... you never know about it. 20 years passes, some CEO in France dies, and leaves a video tape, of him explaining the complex kick back scheme.

If that CEO had decided to not make that tape, you would have NEVER KNOWN. The kick back scheme went on for 20 years, and no one knew. The politicians were filthy rich, the CEO was filthy rich, all of it 100% illegal, and nothing happened to anyone. Again, you would have NEVER KNOWN.

So tell me, what is your banning donations going to do? Nothing.

You say that will never happen here? Bill Clinton sold high end military grade technology to China, in exchange for cash donations.

What happened to Clinton? Nothing. What happened to the people involved? Two got "probation" and "community service". Everyone else, got nothing. Remember Al Gore collecting half a million dollars at a Buddhist Temple, where they take a vow of poverty? How the monks said openly people gave them sacks of money and were told to give it to Al Gore when he showed up?

Dozens of campaign finance laws broken. NOTHING HAPPENED. Gore wasn't impeached. Clinton wasn't impeached on this. No one went to prison. No one lost much of anything. The whole deal was splashed all over the news, and the public supported Clinton no matter what he did.

And you think you are going to ban donation?

When that drug dealer showed up at the White House for a photo op with Hilliary Clinton, he had a check. He intended to donate to the Clinton, right there at the photo op. The staff quickly told him he couldn't do that, and directed him to give the money to an outside group.

So let me paint the hypothetical.... I'm the corrupt politician again. You organize everyone, and ban donations. A company rep, shows up and wants a chat, and he has money with him.

I tell him to donate the money to, NPR, which gives me favorable press. Or to Air America, or to the ACLU which make attack ads against the other candidate, or to Move On, or OWS.... all of which favor me, over the other candidate.

Then... we go have a chat. Shockingly some favorable legislation comes out for the company.

Here's my question. How do you propose we prevent that?

Are you going to ban private groups from free speech too? And if you ban groups from free speech, won't you also have to ban individual free speech? After all, if the Swift Boat Vets hire me to buy an ad on TV attacking one candidate in favor of another, and the Switft Boat Vets are getting money from a company, who got to talk with the president.... same thing all over again. So now you have to completely ban all free speech.

Now you have a government, that is completely disconnected from society. Free from all outside influence. Just like Stalinist Russia, and Maoist China, and Castros Cuba.

I don't think that's a goal we want to achieve.

 

[CultureCitizen]

You say that will never happen here? Bill Clinton sold high end military grade technology to China, in exchange for cash donations.

What happened to Clinton? Nothing. What happened to the people involved? Two got "probation" and "community service". Everyone else, got nothing. Remember Al Gore collecting half a million dollars at a Buddhist Temple, where they take a vow of poverty? How the monks said openly people gave them sacks of money and were told to give it to Al Gore when he showed up?

Would you care to share your links.
Not because , I care to defend a politician ( I tend to defend policy , not politicians) , but because I would like to read about it.

 

[CultureCitizen]

Again, that won't change anything.

Just as it didn't work in France, it most certainly won't work here.

So I'm the stereotypical corrupt politician. You gather the public together, and pass a law banning donations.

But I'm a corrupt politician. I didn't follow the campaign laws before. I'm certainly not going to follow them after.

So I accept money from companies, and... you never know about it. 20 years passes, some CEO in France dies, and leaves a video tape, of him explaining the complex kick back scheme.

If that CEO had decided to not make that tape, you would have NEVER KNOWN. The kick back scheme went on for 20 years, and no one knew. The politicians were filthy rich, the CEO was filthy rich, all of it 100% illegal, and nothing happened to anyone. Again, you would have NEVER KNOWN.

That's quite a cynical point of view.
Under the same ground one could argue dictators should be left in place.
Transparency in both , the government and in the parties incomes and expenses is part of the key . An opaque government is not truly democratic.

 

[natstew]

You say that will never happen here? Bill Clinton sold high end military grade technology to China, in exchange for cash donations.

What happened to Clinton? Nothing. What happened to the people involved? Two got "probation" and "community service". Everyone else, got nothing. Remember Al Gore collecting half a million dollars at a Buddhist Temple, where they take a vow of poverty? How the monks said openly people gave them sacks of money and were told to give it to Al Gore when he showed up?

Would you care to share your links.
Not because , I care to defend a politician ( I tend to defend policy , not politicians) , but because I would like to read about it.

CLINTON S ROGUES GALLERY

 

[Boss]

That's quite a cynical point of view.
Under the same ground one could argue dictators should be left in place.
Transparency in both , the government and in the parties incomes and expenses is part of the key . An opaque government is not truly democratic.

It's not a cynical view, it's a logical view and he is trying to make the same point I made, it's not the amount of money you are legally allowed to raise that is the problem... it's the corrupt politicians with no character or integrity. They're not going to follow your restrictions.

Under the same ground one could argue dictators should be left in place.

You must be confusing this with the liberal argument opposing the Iraq War. No one is saying corrupt politicians shouldn't be punished when caught. To the contrary, probably half of those in DC should be behind bars. We also shouldn't be electing politicians who lie under oath, even if it's only about blow jobs, because people who lie have no character or integrity.

We're already supposed to have transparency in government, in campaign finance and income... it's law of the land. The problem is, everyone doesn't obey the law. It would be peachy if we could just pass a law that everyone has to obey the law, but that doesn't seem to work in reality.