"Follow the money" has almost become a cliché in Washington and for how business is done in our capitol. The reason is because like most clichés, there is a fundamental truth between money and politics and the outcome of legislation when the two are added together. Take yesterday's bailout bill for example, it was a close vote and not political party had little to do with whether one Congresscritter voted for it or didn't. If anything, it was the leadership of both majority and minority that were for it and the legislators lower down the totem poll voted nay.
Answering why that may be, OpenSecrets has an idea:
If you head over there to the full article, the nifty graphs show that Republicans got more whether they voted yea or nay based on the natural affinity for Wall Street over in the GOP. Yet the strongest correlation is the money, not partisan identification. The true problem in Washington is the money, hands down. The Center for Responsive Politics does an excellent job of highlighting the discrepancies and should elicit the public to question their representatives on their vote and why they received so much money from the financial sector.
WASHINGTON -- Members of the House of Representatives who supported bailing out the financial sector with $700 billion in taxpayer money have received 51 percent more in campaign contributions from the finance, insurance and real estate sector in their congressional careers than those who opposed the emergency legislation, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics calculated following the 228-205 vote on Monday that defeated the House bill.
Examining campaign contributions from the industries that were most eager to see the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 passed, the Center found that the gap between lawmakers who supported the bailout and those who successfully opposed it was especially wide among House Democrats.
In this election cycle, Democrats backing Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's proposal have collected 78 percent more from the finance, insurance and real estate (or FIRE) sector than those in their caucus who opposed it and, over time, 88 percent more. In dollar figures, the 140 Democrats who supported the bailout proposal have received $792,744 over their careers from the FIRE sector and $188,572 in this cycle, on average. The 95 Democrats who voted against the bill have received $420,686 over their careers and $105,878 in the 2007-2008 cycle. (CRP's campaign finance data goes back to the 1990 election cycle, or the calendar year 1989.)
The 65 Republicans who backed the bill have collected $1,078,533 from the finance sector in their careers and an average of $185,461 toward this election. The 133 Republicans who led the opposition to the bailout have collected, on average, $705,297 over their careers in Congress and $150,381 in this election cycle alone. That translates into a difference of about 23 percent in this cycle and 53 percent over time.
Now while persuadable politicians are a problem, they are merely a symptom of the much larger systemic ailment we endure. If we were able to clean up the system so that money were given from a public account, politicians would be held more accountable by the people and not the industries that fuel their campaigns and cushy retirement gigs. If you live in Arizona or Maine you know what I'm talking about at the state and local level, imagine how much better things would get if we could develop a similar system nation-wide. There are plans in development to go Federal, but they need all of our support, if we do not push our legislators to action, it'll never happen, because it is in their interest to stay elected and ultimately an informed citizenry (with clean elections) wrests power from corporate America and gives it back to the people.
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