Politicians For Sale

United States elections are increasingly being influenced by the very wealthy part of the very wealthy part of our country. It has been demonstrated by a study published by the Sunlight Foundation http://bit.ly/A7BteM that of the 312 million people living in the United states, just 26,783 contributed 24.3% of the money spent on campaigning in 2010—that group consists of 1%of the top 1% of our people in income earning. The average amount that those rich people gave was $28,913 (more than the mean individual income in the nation, which was $26,364).

In 2010, these wealthy donors spent $774 million on campaigning. As might be expected, the big donors are mostly CEO’s and high-ranking officers and investors of large corporations. Of the 10 companies most listed in the donors affiliations, 6 are financial companies with Goldman Sachs leading all the others by a large margin. Other familiar names in the top 10 of donor-based companies are Microsoft, RJ Reynolds Tobacco, and E & J Gallo Winery.

All this high-level contributing portends bad things for our country. It means that our elections and our political leaders are being strongly influenced by special-interest groups. For instance, we have been notified lately that the Gingrich campaign has received $11 million from casino mogul Sheldon Adelson; and that Mr. Adelson has said that he is ready to contribute another $10-$100 million to the election effort. Do you think that Mr. Adelson is giving away that much money just because he is altruistic and only wants the best for the United States? I would imagine that Mr. Adelson is hoping and expecting to get some favors from his candidate if he should win the Presidency.

Although President Obama still has much more money in his campaign war chest than any Republican contender, since 2010, money collection by conservative PAC’s has far outdistanced the collection by liberal PAC’s.

Juan Williams has written an enlightening editorial in the Washington Times on this subject. http://bit.ly/zFCyg1