Thursday, July 12, 2012

If Big Money In Politics Offends You, Then You Must Loathe Labor Unions

Big money is a big problem in American politics, isn’t it? Former Labor Secretary and freelance public intellectual Robert Reich warns of the dire “secret big-money takeover of America.” “Big money has long dominated our elections,” says the liberal good-government group Common Cause, adding that “the problem with money in politics is not so much the amount that is spent on campaigns as it is who pays for them, what they get in return, and how that affects public policy and spending priorities.” In other words, political spending is a huge problem because of its tendency to be political. Moveon.org is running an online petition seeking a Constitutional amendment to “get big money out of politics.” And the unknown sources of some campaign spending have everyone very worried. “Donors hiding in the shadows,” warns a typical AP report.
Until this week, though, $3.3 billion dollars of political spending from 2005 to 2011 was hidden, jammed down deep beneath the sofa cushions of public life. A blockbuster Wall Street Journal report revealed that Big Labor has been filing most of its disclosures with its friends at the Department of Labor (which, due to its mission to produce jobicidal regulations, is about as accurately named as a funeral home called a Department of Life). Unions’ disclosures to the Federal Election Commission, where you would ordinarily seek information about spending on elections, comprise only one-fourth of their total spending on politics.

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kylesmith/2012/07/10/if-big-money-in-politics-offends-you-then-you-must-loathe-labor-unions/

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