4 ms·

What if people are not upset about spending money on the activity of lobbying, or getting your message out, or spending money traveling to D.C. ? They could be

What if people are not upset about spending money on the activity of lobbying, or getting your message out, or spending money traveling to D.C. ? They could be upset about paying money directly or indirectly to the poiticians. i.e. perhaps it is fine spending money trying to lecture politicians, but not giving the money to politicians and policymakers.

marcoperaza 8y ago
That’s already heavily restricted. You can only give a few thousand to each candidate per election cycle. The problem is that then you have arms-length third-party organizations (Super PACs) that, by virtue of not coordinating with the candidate they support, are able to spend unlimited amounts of money. And the candidates know who donates to those, so once in office, they know who to reward, just as if the donations were made directly to them. Honestly, I think the best system is to just allow unlimited donations directly to candidates, with full disclosure. Money isn’t actually that much of a problem in my opinion. Look at how much Jeb spent in the primaries, only to get savaged by Trump, who spent barely anything. The general control of politics by the “rich and powerful” isn’t because they spend money on campaigns, it’s because the social class represented by them, the top 20% (college-educated professionals, typically working in large urban areas), controls culture, media, ideas, and expertise. Regulatory capture doesn’t happen because of corruption, but because the people with the expertise tend to be the ones who work in the industry being regulated.
- tripzilch 8y ago
  I'm going to need a citation that 20% of the US population are college-educated professionals. Any way you want to slice it: of voting-age, registered, or that actually went to vote. I'm actually curious what is the real percentage, but it's got to be way less than 20%. You surround yourself with people like you, but there's a lot of people and the world is big.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > I'm going to need a citation that 20% of the US population are college-educated professionals. Any way you want to slice it: of voting-age, registered, or that actually went to vote. Per the US Census Bureau’s 2015 American Community Survey, at least 27.24% of the voting-age (18+) population has at least a Bachelor's degree. That’s based on the number from the Over 25 population meeting that description divided by the whole over-18 population; for some reason they only report a count of over-25 with at least a bachelor's degree. [0] Turnout increases significantly with education [1], so the share of the actually voting population with such a degree must be even higher. So, you were right to suspect 20% was way off—just in the wrong direction. [0] (Description page) https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/voting-and-registration/electorate-profiles-2016.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/voting-a... (Data table) https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/voting/UnitedStates.xlsx https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/voting/... [1] http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/demographics http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/demographics
    - marcoperaza 8y ago
      Lots of people with bachelors degrees don’t have professional jobs.

marcoperaza 8y ago

That’s already heavily restricted. You can only give a few thousand to each candidate per election cycle. The problem is that then you have arms-length third-party organizations (Super PACs) that, by virtue of not coordinating with the candidate they support, are able to spend unlimited amounts of money. And the candidates know who donates to those, so once in office, they know who to reward, just as if the donations were made directly to them. Honestly, I think the best system is to just allow unlimited donations directly to candidates, with full disclosure. Money isn’t actually that much of a problem in my opinion. Look at how much Jeb spent in the primaries, only to get savaged by Trump, who spent barely anything. The general control of politics by the “rich and powerful” isn’t because they spend money on campaigns, it’s because the social class represented by them, the top 20% (college-educated professionals, typically working in large urban areas), controls culture, media, ideas, and expertise. Regulatory capture doesn’t happen because of corruption, but because the people with the expertise tend to be the ones who work in the industry being regulated.

tripzilch 8y ago
I'm going to need a citation that 20% of the US population are college-educated professionals. Any way you want to slice it: of voting-age, registered, or that actually went to vote. I'm actually curious what is the real percentage, but it's got to be way less than 20%. You surround yourself with people like you, but there's a lot of people and the world is big.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > I'm going to need a citation that 20% of the US population are college-educated professionals. Any way you want to slice it: of voting-age, registered, or that actually went to vote. Per the US Census Bureau’s 2015 American Community Survey, at least 27.24% of the voting-age (18+) population has at least a Bachelor's degree. That’s based on the number from the Over 25 population meeting that description divided by the whole over-18 population; for some reason they only report a count of over-25 with at least a bachelor's degree. [0] Turnout increases significantly with education [1], so the share of the actually voting population with such a degree must be even higher. So, you were right to suspect 20% was way off—just in the wrong direction. [0] (Description page) https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/voting-and-registration/electorate-profiles-2016.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/voting-a... (Data table) https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/voting/UnitedStates.xlsx https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/voting/... [1] http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/demographics http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/demographics
  - marcoperaza 8y ago
    Lots of people with bachelors degrees don’t have professional jobs.