SRL Archive - Discussions & Debates

So CAPS just released their 2011 CAPS Holiday Shopping Guide and it's not what you think.

I was watching Dylan Ratigan on MSNBC the other day and he had the CAPS founder on there. He was talking about companies that use the money they get from you, and how they use it for lobbying, or any other type of payment to sway politics. CAPS ranks the companies on how much of their PS (Political Spending) is disclosed and transparent. I was surprised to see Walt Disney on the bad list, to me that was the most surprising.

On the show he mentions Google to be the most surprising to him, and it does surprise me too, but the only reference I find of Google on the site is on the entire company list. There isn't any data to go with the claims, so I can't take his word for it until I see proof.

Now, I know MSNBC leans toward liberals some and that's their audience, but I'm an independent and just like the DR show. The holiday guide has a link to the DR show clip if you want to watch it, I think it's worth it.

I've always argued that getting money out of politics is the number one priority. No matter what party gets elected into the White House, whether it be Republican/Democrat/Independent/Whatever party I'm overlooking, it won't be a true representation of what the people want, but what companies want.

I believe that we should move toward a system that uses government funding, rather than company funding. Let's say that at the beginning of elections, every person in the U.S. that can vote is handed a voucher. The person running would have to win our vote to get our voucher, then [and only then], will the person get funding for their campaign. The more vouchers the person receives, the more funding they get. That way, companies can't spend millions of dollars to keep the normal people (you and I) quiet. Each and every one of your votes would actually mean something, and your voice would be heard.

The holiday guide can be found here: http://caps.nationbuilder.com/holiday_shopping_guide
Also, a complete company list can be found here: http://caps.nationbuilder.com/company_rankings

So, what do you think? Should companies disclose their PS information? Does money need to come out of politics, and if so, what's your idea of a change that's fair and equal?

Discuss.

I agree mostly, companies being able to fund lobbyists seems like a bad idea. In my opinion, the funds should come from personal accounts, that way the person himself, not the company makes the sacrifice, (and in the case of a company it's probably more of a calculated risk at increasing profits.) this would make the people make a sacrifice to support a politician, instead of writing off the cost as a company expense.

I think it's treating the symptoms instead of the disease. Like taking some Tylenol when you're dying of cancer might make you feel slightly better, but you're still going to die.

Lobbying and billion dollar campaigns are the symptom. The disease is too much concentration of money and power in government.

If the federal government is doling out $3.7 trillion per year, OF COURSE money will pour into it to influence that process. I saw a documentary on lobbying where some firms calculated that for every $1 spent on lobbying, their clients gained more than $100 of benefits, either from subsidies or contracts, or by avoiding new taxes or regulations. It's that return on investment that keeps money pouring in.

If the government couldn't hand out billion dollar contracts, that return on a lobbying investment would go away. If they couldn't arbitrarily raise taxes on one trade group or industry or another, that return goes away.

Do you think it's a big coincidence that so many politicians go to Washington as regular folks, then leave as millionaires? They wield power and influence, and that is worth a lot of money to people. If they wielded less power and influence, it would be worth less to people.

There is really no fair way to get money out of politics, because people have the right to speak out and support ideas or politicians that they like. But what we CAN do is rein in the government to take away the conflicts of interest. That's something that we have complete and total control over. Anyone that overlooks the issue we have complete control over to go out and try to regulate the behavior of individuals or private businesses is actually further entrenching the real problem.

Corporations have more power than the government, because of lobbying and political spending. If you sever that tie, government can actually run how it should. Until that happens, we're stuck in a broken country.

A lot of the problems in government are caused by corporations spending millions to get what they want. Keep the corporations from having loop holes for avoiding taxes, the same with the upper 1%. Make the corporations responsible for their taxes, make them pay, that alone will help our economy out.

If corporations would spend half the time on innovating, that they spend on lobbying, we'd be a far superior country than it is now.

My method is a fair and equal way to get money out of politics.

I agree that severing the tie is important, but the question is how?

The politicians owe the voters everything, corporations owe the voters nothing. The corporations have zero accountability to the voters, politicians have full accountability to the voters.

It's like if you were married to an unfaithful wife that is cheating on you. You figure out who this other guy is. Now the question is who do you confront? The cheating wife, or the guy she's sleeping with?

Let's say you completely avoid your wife and only go after the guy. What if the guy ignores your complaints? Nothing gets fixed. But even if he responds to your threats and calls it off, you're STILL stuck with an unfaithful wife who will probably be out cheating with someone else within days. This is like your suggestion that we clamp down on lobbying. You're going after corporations that owe you nothing, and even if you clamp down on them somehow you're still stuck with corrupt politicians that will find someone else to pay them off.

Now, what if you instead go and confront the cheating wife? What if she ignores your complaint? You have major leverage, because you can divorce them and take everything you own with you because they will be fully at fault. Or, you can try to patch things up this time, but again there is major pressure to keep her from cheating on you again in the future. This is like confronting the corrupt politicians. If they don't change their cheating ways you vote them out and their political career is over. You have major leverage there.

Like they say, it takes two to tango. In this case we have special interests that try to manipulate politicians, and we have the politicians themselves. You can try to fix the problem from either end. Since the politicians are directly accountable to the voters, that seems like the natural place to start. And like I said before, the real problem is the corrupting influence of such a huge concentration of money and power in government. If you don't address that head on, you will always be stuck with a system that is naturally corrupt, and no matter how many times you try to scare off special interests, someone somewhere will always find a way to get corrupt politicians to divert some of that government money or power their way.

That's like if your wife has a big, fat bank account and all her guy-friends are only after her for her money. If you take the money away, suddenly all the guys disappear and there aren't any more problems. And you don't have to go without money, you just have to take it away from the cheating wife and keep it for yourself. We should take back the money and power that governments have been squandering and abusing for so long.

Perhaps you could lower income inequality so that such a large amount of wealth and power isn't concentrated with such a tiny group of people.

Walmart Heirs Worth Same Amount As Bottom 30 Percent Of Americans In 2007: Analysis

The Occupy Wall Street movement has brought increased focus on the disparity between the top one percent of earners and everyone else in the United States. But one American family paints a particularly stark picture of the country's wealth gap.

The six children of Walmart's founders, Sam and James "Bud" Walton, had the same net worth in 2007 as the entire bottom 30 percent of American earners, according to an analysis from Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist at University of California-Berkeley's Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics.

Though the 2007 figure is striking, the gap between the Walmart heirs and the rest of the country may get even bigger – the Walton's combined fortune has grown by more than $20 billion, according to data compiled from the Forbes 400 this year.

Allegretto compared the Waltons' net worth in 2007, according to Forbes magazine, to the Federal Reserve's 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances.

The difference between the wealth of the Walmart heirs and the rest of the country epitomizes a much larger American story. The top one percent of American earners saw their incomes grow 275 percent between 1979 and 2007, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while the bottom one-fifth experienced only 20 percent income growth during the same period.

Looking at it another way: The top 10 percent of U.S. earners control two-thirds of the country's wealth and the richest 400 Americans control as much wealth as the bottom 50 percent of Americans. The difference is so stark that the public opinion has turned against it: nearly three-quarters of respondents to a poll put out by The Hill said they think income inequality is a problem.

But the rise in income inequality isn't limited to America. In 17 out of 22 countries the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development tracks, the wealth gap has grown more pronounced since 1985. In addition, the world's millionaires control nearly 40 percent of global wealth, according to a Credit Suisse report cited by the Wall Street Journal.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/08/walmart-heirs_n_1137492.html#s480219&title=Name_Based_Racial

And that's where we are right now. Three heirs of the Walton fortune (Walmart) have a greater net worth than the entire bottom 30 per cent of American earners. Three versus 90 million!

It can be plausibly argued that true political democracy is not possible without economic democracy. The workplace is the last bastion of the dictator.

The sad thing is, no matter what idea comes a long that solves this problem, it will never be accepted or used. People are greedy.

The Supreme Court has already ruled that spending unlimited amounts of money on political advocacy by individuals, groups of individuals, and corporations is protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution. So taking the approach to restrict political donations or advertisements by corporations or wealthy people will require a new Constitutional amendment.

I think you're right that no true solution will ever be adopted.

Term limits might help a bit, but how many career politicians are going to vote for that? Not many.

Reducing the concentration of money and power in government is the opposite of what most politicians want. They want more money and more power, not less.

Publicly funded political campaigns might help, but no politician is going to support that. The current system benefits incumbents, so they will keep it. Obama was one of the strongest supporters of publicly financed elections in the Senate, but as soon as he launched his Presidential campaign he saw that private money was pouring in and he opted-out of public financing. So he's the poster child for this reform never happening.

I still think this solution would work much better than what we have now.

I believe that we should move toward a system that uses government funding, rather than company funding. Let's say that at the beginning of elections, every person in the U.S. that can vote is handed a voucher. The person running would have to win our vote to get our voucher, then [and only then], will the person get funding for their campaign. The more vouchers the person receives, the more funding they get. That way, companies can't spend millions of dollars to keep the normal people (you and I) quiet. Each and every one of your votes would actually mean something, and your voice would be heard.

Politicians never want anything, that's not how democracy works.

You have to have a show of collective strength to effectively force politicians to do the right thing. History shows this is how almost all progress was achieved. Bottom-up not top-down.

You can, of course, expect the moneyed interests to fight against anything like this. See the corporate media's vilifications of Occupy Wall Street.

From: Kyle Undefined
Should companies disclose their PS information?

Absolutely. Transparency in government and corporation are integral for growth

From: Kyle Undefined
Does money need to come out of politics, and if so, what's your idea of a change that's fair and equal?

Money is politics. The allocation of resources is the fundamental reason all human organization occurs. My hope is that we can move towards greater governmental transparency, as well as weaning our governments away from corporate interests. We won't see fair or equal in our life time. I would be surprised if our grandchildren did. But that doesn't mean we don't need to start moving towards it NOW.

From: Kyle Undefined


I believe that we should move toward a system that uses government funding, rather than company funding. Let's say that at the beginning of elections, every person in the U.S. that can vote is handed a voucher. The person running would have to win our vote to get our voucher, then [and only then], will the person get funding for their campaign. The more vouchers the person receives, the more funding they get. That way, companies can't spend millions of dollars to keep the normal people (you and I) quiet. Each and every one of your votes would actually mean something, and your voice would be heard.

Our votes not counting is not the issue. The issue is corporation and government swaying public opinion towards their own views. When governments are allowed to hide documents from the public and make decisions without public approval, when corporations are allowed to spend sums of money on lobbying so large that they exceed the common man's yearly income, then there is an issue. The common man's view is drowned out by the torrent of media expelled by the corporations.

Occupy Wall Street has threatened to disrupt the Iowa caucuses by posing as Republicans-for-a-day.

I think this is far more damaging to our country than anyone having "too much speech". The more dialog the better. If someone wants to pay an ungodly amount of money to flood the airwaves with their opinion, I'll consider it. But my vote isn't for sale, and their argument needs to be persuasive if they want to influence me. People have more access to alternative sources of information than ever before, including the internet.

Occupy trying to disrupt and prevent speech from occurring is truly anti-American.

Michelle Bachman attacked Newt Gingrich in the last Repub debate, and he responded that she was wrong. Her response was to say she "had the facts" and was "a serious candidate". I think this was a mistake on her part. People shouldn't squabble over who has "the facts", just state your opinion and let "the facts" speak for themselves.

Attempts to silence other people should be opposed no matter who the target is or how much money they have.