The past few weeks have provided vivid evidence that the U.S.
government has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wall Street and other
wealthy special interests and no longer a government of, by, and for
the people.
It's only five weeks since the 2014 mid-term elections which cost $3.67 billion. Fewer, but larger, donors provided those funds than in past elections. The candidate who spent the most money won their race House race 94.2 percent of the time.
Yet despite the colossal sums spent on campaign ads, how many candidates ran on a platform promising to let banks make risky, taxpayer-guaranteed bets on the kind of complex financial derivatives that tanked the economy in 2008 and led to the government bailing out the big banks while millions of ordinary Americans lost their jobs and their homes?
How many ran on a platform promising to gut what's left of the McCain/Feingold campaign finance reforms and allow millionaires and billionaires to donate 10 times the current limit to political parties, up to $1,296,000 a couple in a 2-year election cycle?
The answer, of course, is that almost no political candidates ran promising to enact such disastrous policies. And hardly any voters went to the polls hoping that their elected representatives would do these things.
Yet in buried riders to the just-passed omnibus spending bill, a majority of the House and Senate -- with votes from both Republicans and Democrats -- did exactly these things that are bad for the vast majority of Americans and good only for Wall Street and other billionaire special interests who fund elections.
And when some progressive Democrats led by Elizabeth Warren rebelled, President Obama lobbied Congress to put down the rebellion and ensure the bill passed so he may sign it.
If it wasn't clear before, it's crystal clear now that the US government enacts the will of its campaign contributors, not the will of the voters.
Read more: The Best Government Wall Street and the Billionaires Can Buy | Miles Mogulescu
It's only five weeks since the 2014 mid-term elections which cost $3.67 billion. Fewer, but larger, donors provided those funds than in past elections. The candidate who spent the most money won their race House race 94.2 percent of the time.
Yet despite the colossal sums spent on campaign ads, how many candidates ran on a platform promising to let banks make risky, taxpayer-guaranteed bets on the kind of complex financial derivatives that tanked the economy in 2008 and led to the government bailing out the big banks while millions of ordinary Americans lost their jobs and their homes?
How many ran on a platform promising to gut what's left of the McCain/Feingold campaign finance reforms and allow millionaires and billionaires to donate 10 times the current limit to political parties, up to $1,296,000 a couple in a 2-year election cycle?
The answer, of course, is that almost no political candidates ran promising to enact such disastrous policies. And hardly any voters went to the polls hoping that their elected representatives would do these things.
Yet in buried riders to the just-passed omnibus spending bill, a majority of the House and Senate -- with votes from both Republicans and Democrats -- did exactly these things that are bad for the vast majority of Americans and good only for Wall Street and other billionaire special interests who fund elections.
And when some progressive Democrats led by Elizabeth Warren rebelled, President Obama lobbied Congress to put down the rebellion and ensure the bill passed so he may sign it.
If it wasn't clear before, it's crystal clear now that the US government enacts the will of its campaign contributors, not the will of the voters.
Read more: The Best Government Wall Street and the Billionaires Can Buy | Miles Mogulescu
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