Damn, I can't think of a better argument for wealth tax if one dude alone is willing to spend $100m to fight it. He clearly has too much.
The idea is that legislator don't have the full context and don't know the impact of their work - so they welcome industry or matter experts. Which is quite reasonable. I would argue that the job of the legislator is to know what they are doing, but I can see it being hard for specific technical issues that really benefits from first hand experience.
I am not even particularly against the idea of donating money to make sure a particular issue is known to the public, so that the public can make an effective voting decision.
But all of this seems quite too much.
Companies have disproportionate amount of money to donate and much less synchronization issue that citizen.
You want to hire a lobbyist to show up and educate a senator on soybean production, more power to you, but it shouldn't come with a check.
Interestingly, the NASDAQ over the same time has also grown 40%.
It feels like they discovered in 2008 that you just never let the stock market go down. Then corporations have endless funds and excess can flow freely into politics.
They just have to convince everyone the market going up is good for the average person. The big problem is most people can't afford to invest so they don't give a shit what it does.
Fortunately they are creating a $1000 investment account for all newborns so everyone will be addicted to the market remaining green from birth.
It must be overturned. It was a bogus ruling.
Don't I have a right to buy a $10 yard sign? A $100 bard sign? A $1000 billboard? A $10K radio ad? A $50K book printing?
Why should I lose any of these rights because I join with others to help me afford it?
I have a pet theory about political ads that I would love to find data to be able to confirm/deny. My theory is that those political ads don’t actually convince anyone about who to vote for, and aren’t intended to. Instead, it’s about convincing the people who already support you and your party to show up and vote. If that’s true, then the root cause of all of this money being injected into politics is really a symptom of low voter turnout. And so anything we can do to improve voter turnout will lessen the influence of money in politics.
My justification for this theory is that I see all of these political ads and really don’t find them convincing or liable to change my vote. I actually find attack ads often have the opposite effect on me, where I am immediately skeptical of whatever claim they advance and feel sure there’s important context they are leaving out. Of course I know I’m not the average voter, and other people may see it differently, but I’d love to see some data on this.
Third-party candidates are almost always unknown and remain unknown to the public, because they have no money to advertise and achieve name recognition, get their message out. The pay-to-play nature of elections preserves the duopoly of the major parties.
Consider also primary campaigns: typically an incumbent has vastly more money to spend than challengers, who are again usually unknown.
When it comes to general election campaigns between two duopolist candidates, there is usually less of a difference in fundraising ability, so it may seem like money doesn't matter a lot. I see campaign donations as more of an entrance fee than a guarantee of victory. It's gatekeeping, where the gates are closed to any politician who can't be purchased by wealthy interests.
Low voter turnout is much more of a problem in the US where voting isn't compulsory.
It’s been turtles all the way down since the Citizens United decision.
lapcat•1h ago
Corporations are people, my friend.
nyc_data_geek1•59m ago
tokioyoyo•51m ago
mpalmer•44m ago
nemomarx•36m ago
cooggog•49m ago
insane_dreamer•52m ago
convolvatron•33m ago
triceratops•42m ago
Then maybe we should start taxing them like people...
File the 1040 take only the standard deduction no matter your income. Revenue, not profit, is your income. Etc.