Big Money Comes Out for the Inauguration

randall_burns writes "Open Secrets is running an interesting story about major donors to Bush's inauguration. The founder of Dell is one of the high rollers funding Bush's party."

Comments

Money is bad

[SimianOverlord]

Such is the corrupt grip that monied interests have on our nations leaders and senators, it seems the only way to solve this problem comes down to two choices. 1)Allow public funding of political parties or 2) make every wannabee politician take a vow of poverty, like church leaders did back in the Dark Ages. Of the two, the latter is the only sensible option.

The first leads down the road to chaos, as every splintered faction appears quite literally from the woodwork, holding their hand out for tax dollars to advertise their presence and garner votes. With the constitution being what it is, this is a dangerous charter for extremists, as a white supremist organisation (for example) would be just as eligible for public funds as a major political party, and one can only assume, would use those funds to push their hateful agenda. I can see Californica, in particular, as the worst hit by this sort of proposal, as it has more than its fair share of cults, drawn by the bright sunlight and fine oranges.

Yet happily another option exists to go back to the glory days of rule by disinterested self-abasing, self sacrificing people like Mother Theresa. Let's face it, if you still wanted to be a politician after being told you would live a life of abject poverty, living day by day on scraps scavenged from kitchen bins, only the truly motivated would stay in the profession. A similar system could be put in place for the law profession. Just a thought.

Re: Money is bad

[Black Parrot]

> Such is the corrupt grip that monied interests have on our nations leaders and senators, it seems the only way to solve this problem comes down to two choices. 1)Allow public funding of political parties or 2) make every wannabee politician take a vow of poverty, like church leaders did back in the Dark Ages. Of the two, the latter is the only sensible option.

A third option would be to hand over the money to someone who would spend it wisely, such as me.

Re:What's the point?

[tdemark]

Is there something special we're supposed to be inferring?

According to most TV reports and newspapers, any of the following should be fine:

• Bush is a bad president because this money, which was donated by citizens and corporations explicitly for the inauguration, should go to the tsunami victims
• Bush is a bad president because this money, which was donated by citizens and corporations explicitly for the inauguration, should go to the Iraq war
• Bush is a bad president because his inauguration total was around $40 mil, while Clinton was a good president because his '93 inauguration was only $33 million.
• Bush stole the election

- Tony