8 ms·
>How could anyone in good conscience think this is good for the people? They don't. The politicians who voted for this only represent the interests of the lobb
by diogenescynic 10y ago
>How could anyone in good conscience think this is good for the people?
They don't. The politicians who voted for this only represent the interests of the lobbyists and financial backers who 'donated/bribed' them during their campaign. Politicians don't care about the will of the people at all, several studies have shown this.
Before America can accomplish much of anything--we need real and substantial campaign finance reform. Too many corporations are able to influence elections and it's not good for democracy. I would think after this last election, democrats could run on this as a national security issue, if they were smart but no one has ever accused them of that.
- aj_g 10y ago> Politicians don't care about the will of the people at all, several studies have shown this. Interesting. I was unaware studies had been done on this. Care to share any links?
- alistproducer2 10y agoyou really don't need studies. look at the polling data of things that get passed. The AHCA is being rushed through despite being wanted by only 17% of the public [0]. 0: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/poll-gop-trump-obamacare-repeal-236420 http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/poll-gop-trump-obamaca...
- BatFastard 10y agoBut the health care C level execs are getting big tax cuts, and they are repealing the 3.8% tax on some kind of investment income. So its good for everyone!
- ConceptJunkie 10y agoI don't know if there are any studies, but the single-digit approval rating of Congress says it quite clearly.
- Arizhel 10y agoAmericans love Congress. The approval ratings are very, very high. The ratings you cite are wrong, because they show the wrong thing: they show what people think of other peoples' Congress members. American voters are very happy with their Congresspeople; that's why they keep re-electing them. They just don't like everyone else's Congress picks (esp. ones in the "other" party).
- macawfish 10y agoInteresting angle!
- rickdale 10y agoI don't know if Americans "love" congress, as much as we are just ignorant to who are what congress is. See someone from the other side, hate em, see familiar name on the ballot, vote for em.
- snsr 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering
- Arizhel 10y agoDoesn't apply to the Senate.
- ASpring 10y agoNot parent but here you go: "Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence." https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
- username223 10y agoPoliticians are routinely bought by those with narrow interests. By coincidence, Planet Money recently did a podcast about automatically filling out tax returns in California: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/22/521132960/episode-760-tax-hero http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/03/22/521132960/episo... tl;dr: In a pilot, 99% of people preferred the auto-filled returns, but the bill to make it law failed by one vote, because of Intuit and Grover Norquist.
- ericHosick 10y agoThere was a study a read (that I can't find now), I think by MIT, that showed there was no correlation between what bills passed in the house/senate and the 'will of the voter' (what people wanted). Until you took into account money. Then there was a correlation between what was passed and the 'will of the lobbyist'. Really wish I could find that study again.
- lowbloodsugar 10y agoVideo based on Princeton study: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig&feature=youtu.be
- ConceptJunkie 10y agoCampaign finance reform is treating the symptom, and you'll never be able to stuff that genie back in the bottle. Like it or not, money and free speech are interfungible (I'm sure that's not a word), you can't control one without harming the other. Before America can accomplish much of anything, we need a populace that will invest more into choosing a candidate than deciding who has the pithiest attack ad.
- komali2 10y agoSo before America can accomplish anything, we need to get a highly educated population that is rich enough to be able to afford the time to research complex local, statewide, and national politics. There's a hell of a lot of symptoms between us and the goal, and the current system seems to be doing everything it can to prevent us from reaching it (defunding education, defunding healthcare, preventing efforts to get out the vote, gerrymandering).
- Arizhel 10y agoRight, and the voters are happily voting for pols who defund education and healthcare.
- komali2 10y agoWell, my point is, they might be trying to vote otherwise, but gerrymandering and voter suppression prevents them. For example, the American people didn't elect Donald Trump, but he became president.
- vedranm 10y agoLet me correct you there: the American people did elect Donald Trump and he became president. Electoral College is the way to get elected, and popular vote has zero impact. That's why nobody who wants to win runs for the popular vote.
- 10y ago
- Arizhel 10y agoI'm not sure campaign finance reform would do much. Look what we saw in this last election; regular everyday people (generally the non-urban ones) have poor education and don't understand the issues. All they care about is the "Mexicans", abortion, guns, which bathroom a tiny number of people use, etc., and they'll vote for politicians who tell them what they want to hear on these issues. These pols can easily convince their constituents that things like this new law are good, because it'll reduce "unnecessary regulation" that "strangles companies" and "reduces competition" and "drives prices up". The voters are too short-sighted and stupid to remember all this and notice when, in fact, prices just go up and privacy protections disappear as a result of laws like this, so the pols won't be held accountable. Campaign finance reform won't help this kind of thing. Just look at Dave Brat in Virginia; he won over Mark Cantor, despite Cantor being a long-time incumbent with a huge war chest and lobbyist backing and Brat being a little-known Tea Party candidate. Or just look at Trump: how much did he spend on campaigning? Virtually nothing. Hillary was the one spending obscene amounts of money on campaigning, and she was horribly unpopular and lost. The problem isn't money, it's the voters.
- MarcScott 10y agoBut without the huge donations and constant lobbying, wouldn't the politicians be more inclined to enact legislation that favored their voters over corporate interests.
- rayiner 10y agoNo, because the corporate interests control all the jobs and that's what voters care about more than anything.
- c0ndu17 10y agoA good first step would be to revoke `Citizens United`
- BatFastard 10y agoIts voters for sure, but it is also the money, and the media. 24 hour cables news need content! And dog bless Trump if he does not provide a sh*tload of it. It has been reported that received over 2 billion USD in free press coverage. Given enough money you can convince enough people of things like trickle down economics work, or climate change is a Chinese hoax. So indeed voters need to wise up( not going to happen IMHO ), we need to have less money in politics ( right ), or pigs could fly out my ass. I am just hoping that our AI overlords will be kind.
- rayiner 10y agoI can't believe Democrats are beating the campaign finance reform angle after Trump. Hello: the candidate with far greater corporate funding lost. Now, big corporations (the New York Times, etc.) are what stand between Trump and his agenda.
- JauntyHatAngle 10y agoYou can't think about this like Democrats vs Republicans, They are both bought out by lobbyists. This is people vs corporation. In the case of Trump, he IS one part of corporate America. He is benefiting himself and his slice of corporate America. "Now, big corporations (the New York Times, etc.) are what stand between Trump and his agenda." There are shades here, not as easy a statement to make as you have made. While trump would definitely scare the American corps because of his protectionist, destabilising economic policy, the republican establishment is still behind a metric ton of the laws/bills etc that are bandied about, and they are corporate owned. They still have the pockets of the politicians, they just don't like some of the other stuff. The weapons industry as a softball example would be jumping for joy at Trump. So the corps are not standing between Trump and his agenda, but they definitely would have preferred a normal republican candidate.
- shorttime 10y ago> You can't think about this like Democrats vs Republicans, They are both bought out by lobbyists. This is people vs corporation. Why do the majority of people not recognize this?
- kovek 10y agoHow would one go about finding these studies you mentioned?
- therpe1 10y agoWhy do you keep saying 'the politicians'? This was a straight party-line vote. There's a single party here working very hard to centralize and corporatize the internet. There's another party working against that. I have to say I find it a bit hilarious when something like this happens and it's the result of a select, easily identifiable group and Americans then throw their hands up and declare, "The whole system is corrupt!" I mean come on.
- LoonyBalloony 10y agoHere are my favorite videos on electoral reform: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GFG0sXIig