Friday, July 21, 2006

Money, money, money


The amounts of money involved in funding political races is obscene. The Pennsylvania Progressive points out that Santorum got some money from someone tied to Jack Abramoff. I'm sure if you look at Casey's reports you will find some questionable donations. Every campaign is involved in this sort of gotcha. It just doesn't register with the rest of us.

The general perception, right or wrong, is that they are all bought and paid for. I don't what can be done about it. The law of the land is money=free speech. The practical effect is that people with a fat bank account have a louder voice than the rest of us.

Short of amending the constitution I don't know what can be done. And there are very few constitutional amendments I favor. It's worked so far so don't mess with it.

Well there is one constitutional amendment I favor.

The designator hitter rule shall not be used in the game of baseball in the United States.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen on the DH Gort. How do you feel about publicly financed campaigns? They work SO WELL at the Federal level

PA progressive said...

I agree that money corrupts politics. That's why we need public financing of campaigns. Examining the FEC reports tells us a lot about the candidates: when you know where their support is coming from you'll know how they'll vote once in office.

I spent 4 hours going through Santorum's FEC reports today and found some interesting stuff. There will an article Saturday morning about 38 contributors to his campaign who went way over the maximum allowed by law.

A Big Fat Slob said...

Casey, in fact, took MORE money from Abramoff's partners than Santorum did. Not to toot my own, but here's the piece I posted on that back in April -- http://abigfatslob.blogspot.com/2006/04/
bob-casey-jr-takes-money-from-abramoff.html

Gort said...

This gotcha game of who gave what to who is a symptom of the problem. But the last two attempts at reform on the federal level just created new loopholes. I don't know what the answer is. The state is even worse.