Restoring democracy in the United States will require major reforms that reduce the power of corporations, elites and special interests in the whole political process. Right now, there is a radical disconnect between the political and economic elites and the needs and interests of the ordinary voters. Most people today realize that the country is in its worse crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, but government and the political system seem dysfunctional and incapable of dealing with it. Removing the power and control of big money from the political process forever would be the most important step in revitalizing American democracy and making the system more representative and accountable. Over the last thirty years, the civic virtues of equal citizenship rights for all, free public education, democracy and sovereignty of the people have been severely eroded and will require major reforms to be restored. Government is not serving the public interest as originally intended, and all opinion polls show considerable distrust and suspicion toward the president, Congress, both major political parties and the political process in general. Private power in the hands of wealthy donors, lobbyists and corporations in Washington has become almost unlimited today thanks to Citizens United and other recent Supreme Court decisions.
Of all the possible changes that would be necessary and beneficial in the United States the most important would be to remove the power of big money from the political process. In 2000, the presidential elections cost $3 billion, which increased to $4.1 billion in 2004 and $5.3 billion in 2008, while the off-year elections cost $1.6 billion in 1998, $2.2 billion in 2002, $2.8 billion in 2006 and $3.6 billion in 2010 (OpenSecrets.org, 2011). Corporations should not be allowed to donate any money to politicians or political parties, and all elections should be publicly financed. Of all the possible reforms that would be necessary and beneficial in the country the most important would be to remove the power of big money from the political process. In 2012, the presidential elections are likely to cost $6 billion or more, since the floodgates are open for special interests to donate unlimited amounts, and in secret. Almost all of this money came from large corporations and wealthy individuals, who can now give unlimited amounts of money because of Citizens United and other recent Supreme Court decisions.
With the appointment of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, earlier decisions that placed limits on corporate financing of elections such as Buckley v. Valeo (1976), Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and McConnell v. FEC (2003) were overturned. In the past, the Supreme Court had maintained that unlimited campaign donations gave rise to “corruption or the appearance of corruption”, but the Roberts Court denied this (Hasen 583). Roberts, Alito and the other three Republican justices took “an expansive view of corporate free speech rights” when striking down all such limits (Hasen 587). They also overturned provisions in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold Act) of 2002 that put limits on expenditures for television and radio advertisements designed to influence elections. In the 2008 elections, John McCain actually accepted public financing for his campaign, as had Barack Obama before finally deciding to opt out. As McCain predicted, this would mean the end of public financing for any future presidential elections, while Citizens United simply opened the floodgates to unlimited donations and expenditures.
One important example of how corporate money corrupts the political process is in energy policy, especially in keeping the country dependent on fossil fuels and weakening environmental protections. Senator John McCain called the Energy Policy Act of 2005 the No Lobbyist Left Behind Bill, and Senator Hillary Clinton made an issue of it in the 2008 Democratic primaries since Barack Obama voted for the it. This law passed both Houses of Congress with bipartisan support, and offered $1.6 billion in grants and $12.3 billion in subsidies, mostly for the oil, coal and nuclear industries. Among its significant provisions was the Halliburton Loophole, which allowed hydraulic fracturing in methane gas extraction to be exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act, which also benefitted other major energy companies such as ConocoPhillips, Chevon-Texaco and Devon Energy, which spent $15 million of the 2004 elections and $70 million on lobbying Congress (Grifin 12). It also exempted oil and gas companies from the Federal Water Pollution Act and restricted the ability of states to regulate offshore drilling, including in the Gulf of Mexico—which is where the Deepwater Horizon explosion led to the worst oil spill in history a few years later.
Texas companies gained disproportionately from the Energy Policy Act, not coincidentally because House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Joe Barton, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, were from that state. DeLay of course was later imprisoned for corruption and Barton apologized to British Petroleum after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Other provisions of the bill included $4.3 billion in tax breaks for the nuclear industry, $2.8 billion for fossil fuels and $1.6 billion for ‘clean coal’, although renewable energy also obtained $2.7 billion due to lobbying by environmental groups. It also had grants for wind, solar, biofuel, hydrogen fuel cells and tax breaks for energy conservation, as well as direct grants to unnamed companies favored by certain Senators, including the Larry Craig of Idaho, who later resigned because of a bizarre sex scandal (Public Citizen 2005). There were also $3 billion in grants for new coal-fired power plants. In short, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was a classic pork barrel project which once again demonstrated “special interest influence in policymaking”, which is the only type of energy policy that ever passes Congress (Griffin 12).
In 2000-08, the energy and natural resource sector spent $304 million on federal elections, 72% of which went to Republican candidates. Of this $141 million came from the oil and gas industry, and overall these industries were the fifth largest contributors to elections, with finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) always in first place. More importantly, energy and natural resource companies spent $2 billion on lobbying during the same period, and had allies in control of the Energy Task Force chaired by former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney, as well as the key House and Senate Committees. In George W, Bush, they also had a Texas president whose family had been closely connected to the oil and gas industry for decades, and had himself been head of an independent oil company (Gevi and McNabb,2001, p. 93). Under these highly favorable circumstances in 2005, the real question is not whether the energy industries were in control of the entire process, since they obviously were at every level, but that Democrats and environmental groups were able to obtain some tax breaks and subsidies for conservation, renewable energy, hybrid vehicles and energy-efficient appliances. Since the bill passed with bipartisan support in both houses of Congress, and was overwhelmingly favorable to the oil, coal and nuclear industries, the Democrats and their allies were only able to obtain some concessions for they allies and interest groups (Sherman 36).
Under a Republican administration and Congress, any type of energy policy bill is going to be overwhelmingly favorable to the oil, gas, nuclear and goal industries, which direct most of the campaign donations and lobbying efforts to that party. This is simply a matter of public record and not in dispute, although Democrats Senators from oil and coal states like Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana will also fall in line behind the traditional energy industries. No Democratic administration has ever been able to eliminate the subsidies and tax breaks that regularly flow to this sector, or shift the focus of energy policy to greener alternative fuels and renewable energy. In 2009-11, the Obama administration attempted to do so and failed because enough Democrats joined with Republicans to block any such change in policy. At present, the U.S. still imports 58% of its oil and obtains most of its domestic electricity from coal-fired power plants, and the Energy Policy Act of 2005 showed exactly how effective the lobbying efforts by traditional energy companies could be in Congress (Sherman, p. 37-38). Nothing in the bill was directed at improving the fuel efficiency of automobiles, for example, which would be the single best method known today for reducing oil consumption, while it subsidized offshore drilling and the construction of new coal and nuclear plants. In contrast to the giant oil, coal and nuclear industries, alternative energy companies spent only $3.8 million in federal campaign contributions in 2000-08, or just 1.5% of the total for the entire energy and national resource sector (Gevi and McNabb, p. 93).
Energy policy is just one of many examples of how the power of corporate money controls Congress and both political parties to the detriment of the workers, consumers and the public interest in general. Wall Street and the financial industry lobbied Congress heavily to weaken laws and regulations that controlled speculation of the kind that led to the Great Depression of the 1930s, and then when the inevitable crash came in 2008-09, they lobbied for the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), the most expensive corporate bailout in history. Combined with trillions more from the Federal Reserve, and the lost wages, incomes and home values, the total cost of this crash was higher than the Gross National Product of the United States. Bailing out American capitalism in the present depression was far more expensive than most of the public will ever realize, especially since many of the costs were deliberately hidden. This Great Bailout was much larger than the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), which went to the large banks, insurance and automobile companies. All but $50 billion of this has been paid back, but that was only one small part of the bailout. Governments concentrated on bailing out the banks and corporate elites rather than creating public works and jobs programs as Keynes would have recommended, and the costs in low wages and high unemployment for the working class and middle class was at least $5 trillion. Wall Street is profitable and the bankers are getting their bonuses, but ordinary workers and consumers at the lower and middle levels of the economy are suffering the worst conditions since the Great Depression of the 1930s. They also had to absorb most of the costs of the rampant speculation of the housing bubble and its collapse in 2008-09, which is conservatively estimated to be $10 trillion. These housing values will not return to the pre-bubble levels in a generation—if ever—but there has been no effective federal program for home mortgage relief as there was in the 1930s. So far the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has spent about $500 on collapse banks, which have not failed at this rate since the 1930s, and the Federal Reserve has also spent about $2 trillion to but bad mortgages and assets from the banks. In addition, the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which also participated in the housing bubble, is likely to cost one trillion dollars. Following monetarist policies of keeping interest rates at zero for three years has costs retirees and small savers about $2 trillion in lost interest. Finally, about $300 billion of the almost one trillion in government stimulus spending is basically missing and unaccounted for. In short, the bailout of Wall Street and corporate America has turned out to be larger than the Gross National Project of the United States, although ordinary workers and consumers are quite correct in their belief that very little of it has benefitted them. Almost all of it has gone to save the elites at the top of the social pyramid, and the nation’s wealth is more concentrated in their hands today than at any time since the 1920s.
Most of the public realizes that Wall Street banks and other large corporations were able to receive trillions of dollars in bailout money from Congress and the Federal Reserve while relatively little was done to deal with the problems of poverty and unemployment that the common people face in this Great Recession. No other reform is as urgent and imperative as passing a constitutional amendment to ban all private donations to politicians and political parties and making all elections publicly financed. If this does not happen, the future of American democracy is bleak, and the country will increasingly become an oligarchy or aristocracy and no political party will represent the common people. Only changes like these will return the government to the hands of the people and enable it to deal with the problems of poverty, unemployment, inequality and racial discrimination that are destroying the country. At present, a proposed amendment to the Constitution to overturn the Citizens United decision and ban corporate donations has already been proposed in Congress although it has not found many co-sponsors. This type of amendment should be passed, because the power of big money in politics has turned the country into an oligarchy rather than a democracy
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