"The late journalist Meg Greenfield once wrote trying to get money out of politics is akin to the quest for a squirrel-proof birdfeeder. No matter how clever and ingenious the design, the squirrels are one mouthful ahead of you. Here’s an example, Corporations are limited in how much they can contribute to candidates’ campaigns, right? But someone’s always figuring out how to open another back door." Journalist Bill Moyers was the Deputy Director of the Peace Corps under founding Director Sargent Shriver.
Bill Moyers writes: Politics, money indelibly linked
Politics, money indelibly linked
By BILL MOYERS
The Associated Press
Posted Jul 25, 2008 @ 12:12 AM
Once again we’re closing the barn door after the horse is out and gone.
In Washington, the Federal Reserve has finally acted to stop some of the predatory lending that exploited people’s need for money. And like Rip Van Winkle, Congress is finally waking up from a long doze under the warm sun of laissez-faire economics.
That’s French for turning off the alarm until the burglars have made their getaway.
Philosophy is one reason we do this to ourselves; when you worship market forces as if they were the gods of Olympus, then the gods can do no wrong — until, of course, they prove to be human. Then we realize we should have listened to our inner agnostic and not been so reverent in the first place.
But we also get into these terrible dilemmas because we refuse to recognize the connection between money and politics. This is the great denial in democracy that may ultimately mean our ruin.
We just don’t seem able to see or accept the fact that money drives policy. Mega banking and investment firms have been some of the biggest providers of the cash vital to keeping incumbents in office. There isn’t much appetite for biting — or regulating — the manicured hand that feeds them.
Guess who gave the most money to candidates in this 2007-08 federal election cycle? That’s right, the financial services and real estate industries. They stuffed nearly $250 million into the candidate coffers.
Look at any of the important issues bogged down in the swampland along the Potomac and you don’t have to scrape away the muck too deeply to find that campaign cash is at the core of virtually every impasse.
The late journalist Meg Greenfield once wrote trying to get money out of politics is akin to the quest for a squirrel-proof birdfeeder. No matter how clever and ingenious the design, the squirrels are one mouthful ahead of you. Here’s an example, Corporations are limited in how much they can contribute to candidates’ campaigns, right? But someone’s always figuring out how to open another back door.
So from the financial meltdown brought on by predatory lending to global warming to tax breaks and other favors, the late California politician Jesse “Big Daddy” Unruh got it right: Money is the mother’s milk of politics. He knew what he was talking about, because Big Daddy swigged it by the gallon. Now it has curdled into a witch’s brew.
Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program “Bill Moyers Journal,” which airs Friday night on PBS.
