What exactly does a large political contribution do for a
contributor? The standard line is that access is “bought.” Being far removed
from the Washington “belt-way,” the American people have swallowed the line,
admittedly naively. As of 2015, we can look at the proverbial “man behind the
curtain” for a much more realistic grasp of the extent to which private interests seeking particular benefits even at the expense of the whole (e.g., increasing a deficit) corrupt the American
political system.
Speaking in 2012, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter asserted, "we
have one of the worst election processes in the world right in the United
States of America, and it's almost entirely because of the excessive influx of
money."[1]
In 2015, both Carter and the current federal president, Barak Obama, lamented
what Carter characterized as political bribery, “a complete subversion of our
political system as a payoff to major contributors.”[2] No one is clean in Washington, Obama said at
a news conference. We have to take the money to compete in elections and that
obliges us. In other words, both presidents were confirming for us that major political
contributors do indeed get more than access; the elected office-holders feel
obliged to repay the contributors with benefits through favorable legislation
or regulation.
Hence, Goldman Sachs was the largest single contributor to Obama’s 2008
campaign, and the financial reform law passed two years later steered clear of
breaking up the five largest U.S. banks, which at the time had even more assets—a
third more—as a group than they did in September 2008. Additionally, Obama
backed off including even a public-sector health-insurance option after the health-insurance industry lobby objected. Had that
industry contributed to his campaign? If so, did the companies that denied
pre-existing conditions bribe the president to insure that the insured would
still have to rely on those companies?
Bribery is a strong term; it is a stark indication that the United States
are not cities on a hill—salubrious bastions of clean business and government
in a corrupt world where bribery runs rampant. American CEOs cannot justifiably
lament having to pay brides in other countries because the political
contributions domestically are in fact bribes. Put another way, legalized
bribery is still bribery even if the shiny veneer makes it more difficult to
see underneath. Speaking in 2015, Carter’s recommendation was to make public
financing of elections mandatory, hence limiting or expunging altogether
private contributions. For this to happen, the U.S. Supreme Court would have to
step down from its judicial doctrine that money is speech. The next question in
need of a real answer may be whether the Court is subject to bribery, whether
directly or through a power-elite.
1. The
Associated Press, “Jimmy
Carter Slams ‘Financial Corruption in U.S. Elections,” CBS News, September
12, 2012.
2. Paige
Lavender, “Jimmy
Carter Blasts U.S. ‘Political Bribery’,” The Huffington Post, July 31,
2015.
