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Did Internet Sales Tax Backers Bribe Congress? (Video)
This may be a coincidence, but according to MapLight, Senators who voted last week for the bill allowing states to directly collect taxes on sales via the Internet, AKA The Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013, received 40 times as much campaign donation money (yes, that's four-oh, not just four) from businesses in favor of the bill as those who voted against it received from businesses that were against Internet sales taxes. Was this bribery? Of course not! We're not some piddly fifth-world country. But it's a prime example of how money influences politics here in the good old USA, and it's far from the only one we've seen lately. In this video, MapLight Program Director Jay Costa shares a bunch more with us, along with tips on how to spot this sort of thing and some steps we voters can take to fight against both direct and indirect influence-buying. Note that all this is totally non-partisan; the politicians with the most influence -- whether local, state or federal -- get most of the available special interest money no matter what other agenda(s) they may have. And for those who want to learn more about who is spending their dollars to influence your representatives, Jay also suggests a look at these two money-in-politics resources: FollowTheMoney.org and OpenSecrets.org.
You need to fix the problems with elections themselves. Safe districts make easily manipulated legislators not just in bed with lobbyists but married to them for decades.
Any of the following would work:
Increasing the number of representatives in the house by a factor of ~100
Defining a countrywide party agnostic algorithm for automatically creating districts
Moving to proportional representation(this one would also fix the 2 party problem).
There are lots of other approaches, I'd support yours, if it dealt with this problem. Just support some kind of fix.
I'm not sure this is the best example, because congresspeople would have another incentive to support the measure: all of their home town local shops will have also been calling them up (and directing their customers to do so as well) in support of it, at least I'd guess so. I've been to enough town meeting type things where there was a lot of talk about "buy local!" and such because the local businesses were being so undercut by the big internet giants (who also weren't paying sales tax). It's the kind of thing that riles up city councils everywhere.
Proof: The bill got passed with bipartisan support.
I am officially gone from
Is it bribery or do companies donate more money to politicians that will agree with their policies?
FTFY
[ BTW, The answer to both is "yes". ]
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Yes, there are always two scenarios.
1) Bribery, in effect if not in the precise definition. Politicians who would have voted against it or who had no defined position received funds in direct or implied exchange for their vote.
2) Politicians who have a stated position received money from companies who benefit from that position. This is still distasteful in that it gives the people in control of the money a disproportionate say in government but doesn't rise to the same level of immorality.
So you'd think it would be relatively easy to do an analysis as to which is which. Unfortunately you also have politicians shopping for donations by taking positions which they think will bring them in.
It's LOBBYING. They're just expressing the free speech rights of the megacorporations they represent to influence the outcome of elections to select people who will do their bidding.
There's a difference.
I'm not following your analogy. If I'm for a position, is it bribery when I donate to a politician that shares my views? So if I were for free municipal Internet access, is it bribery if I donate money to a politician that feels the same? Or am I required to donate to a politician that does not share my views on an issue?
The 40 times number is meaningless without further context. The majority of buisnesses collect sales tax. Of course those people would support removing the loop hole that prevents sales tax from being collected on internet purchases.
At least for someone that not followed the news the last, don't know, 20 years? You mean that you never doubted all the other major laws in last years hadn't any major bribe or similar behind?
Why should companies and especially corporations be allowed to donate money? Only private citizens should have that right, and I dare say, those in or running for public office should be allowed to take from those they represent.
Run for Senate in Pennsylvania, the law should be that they accept only from PA citizens. Running to represent district 5 in NY? Please only accept from distric 5 residents. Otherwise we have Senators from Delaware representing Hollywood's interests and not his own constituents. Joe Biden, I'm looking at you.
If I'm for a position, is it bribery when I donate to a politician that shares my views?
Of course not. But I will warn you that when it turns out that the politician you're supporting does something unpopular, you're supporting that too. If you had just bribed them you'd have the excuse of saying "I don't support him I just needed him to vote ___ on S.B. 12345". See also...
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
This statistic, as presented, proves pretty much nothing.
Look, I'll cheerfully agree that our congresspeople are largely nicely-dressed whores who apparently will vote whichever way they're funded, but the statistics presented here are so confused as to be nearly meaningless.
The total given by those in favor may have been 40x that given against.
Then again, this could be (viewed objectively) simply a groundswell of opinion in favor.
I look at my senators (both D-MN):
Amy Klobuchar took $532,457 from those in favor, $16,298 from those opposed. ~30x as much.
Al Franken took $858,186:$11,400 almost 90x.
Two SOLID yes votes, as they vote mindless lockstep with their party.
Yet Jeff Flake (R-AZ), he received $588,966 $2,800 - a staggering 200x in favor, and voted "NO".
Mark Kirk (R-IL) $1,076,621to $28,200 or some 35x in favor, another "NO" vote.
So it doesn't seem that the wierdly-presented statistic of how much more one guy got from one side vs the other controls which way they voted.
I'd argue from opensecrets.org that the link between money and legislation is so obvious that it's hard to imagine that anyone could present it in a way that's NOT conclusive...like maplight managed to....
-Styopa
Does it matter? Money is a corrupting influence no matter what. The only thing a Senator should concern himself with is the merit of the arguments for and against.
Donations to public officials should be completely illegal for this reason. Fund campaigns with public money exclusively, and you'll save a lot more than you spend when you reap the benefits of good policy.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Kind of hard for consumer groups to get up in arms either - after all you're already legally required to pay sales tax on everything you buy online, it's just that nobody actually does so. What would the consumer groups lobby on - the ability of citizens to break the law on a regular basis with impunity? In principle this legislation is simply moving responsibility for paying sales tax from the private citizens who aren't living up to their legal responsibility to the businesses which are profitting from their customer's illegal behavior.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
You Americans are the only country in the world that pretends outrageous "campaign contributions" aren't bribery.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Yes of course it's bribery. The only way to stop it is to make contributing to campaigns as illegal as accepting brown paper enveloped stuffed with cash.
Political contributions by businesses to politicians are ALWAYS bribes. Period. Businesses expect a return on their investments. Individuals donate to candidates because they feel generally that the candidate will do the right thing in office (or sometimes because they feel their opponent will definitely do the wrong thing) Businesses on the other hand have a very narrow focus, and when they donate to a political figure it's very clear why they are doing that. They want something... and later they will make it clear what that something is. Walmart comes out in favor of some legislation... last election they gave you $50k in donations... voting against this thing they are "Strongly supporting" clearly means what to your next campaign effort? It's pretty easy to do the math.
I paid for
You don't seem to realise that that's the point at which you crossed the line into bribery. Politicians should be influenced by what their constituents say, not how much they can pay.
Policy shouldn't be about what gives them the biggest pot of funds for re-election.
It also matters in how the money is spent. Money given to a politician must be spent on his election. If every penny is spent then the only thing the politician gained was the salary of the office he will hold.
And the power he gains. A politician wants to get elected more than anything.
If you're in the situation where politicians need big money to be reelected, and they change their policies to suit the rich people and organisations that can fund that reelection, then you're fucked.
It's what's wrong with American politics. And it is bribery, even if it's not going into the politician's pocket, but only his reelection fund.
What's needed is to cap funding at a fraction of the level that's allowed now. Or ideally to fund all politicians from a pot of money that's not conditional, and is at the same level for every candidate in a given race.
While it's an intriguing idea it's impossible in practice. The guys in hollywood will just run the ads on their own without giving the money to the election campaign.
Impossible? It doesn't happen in Britain. I'm not sure if that's because it's banned or just something that's not done.
It doesn't have to be allowed to happen in America either. In addition to getting rid of the bribery of politicians, your democracy would be better without PACs doing TV ads. Policies should be discussed and debated intelligently. They shouldn't be left to advertising execs to use their hucksterish advertising on it.
Not that I'm saying that Britain has it all right either. The newspaper magnates are our greatest enemy of democracy. Rupert Murdoch in particular holds way too much sway, and he's not even British.
Would you also include independent candidates in this? If so, where do you draw the line?
If you ban campaign contributions entirely (which I would probably support) you would also have to limit the amount of money a candidate is allowed to spend on campaigning, so that the richest candidate doesn't win just because they can afford the best PR. That limit would have to be either very low, so that pretty much anyone could be a candidate, or the state would have to pay. Neither of these seems feasible.
Bribery, to me, is more about paying someone to do something they shouldn't do, or that person demanding payment to do what they ought to. This might include letting a parking ticket slide, voting against the wishes of those one is supposed to represent or blowing some rich old geezer (I imagine).
I don't see a problem in supporting the campaign of a candidate whom I believe will do a good job of representing me, though I deplore the need to do so. However, when a business does the same, that's quite different; governments should serve people, not legal fictions. I'd be very much in favour of banning all but private donations, and open to the idea of limiting those severely.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
It would be pretty starling if you weren't allowed to exercise these rights in concert, for example by assembling into a corporation and lobbying or contributing to a campaign.
It wouldn't be startling at all. The fact that corporations can exist is only due to laws that permit them to exist. It's also well established that it's perfectly reasonable to limit what corporations can do. For example, in Nebraska farms can't be corporately owned or run.
In the early days of the Republic corporations were severely restricted. They could only be created by a special act of the legislature, and the corporate charter had to be narrow and specific about what business the corporation could conduct. For example, corporations were sometimes created to build and run turnpikes (toll roads). They couldn't decide later that they also wanted to get into the river boat business. And the corporate charters required periodic renewal (typically 5-10 years). Nor was that an empty threat. Corporations that didn't operate in the public interest could and did have their charters revoked.
The general laws of incorporation, which permit the existence of modern corporations, which don't require approval of the legislature, may engage in any business and have unlimited lifetime, dates only to the mid-19th century. It's hardly an ancient property right. The general laws of incorporation were passed in order to make it easier to create the sort of capital intensive businesses that the industrial revolution spawned. The limited liability aspect (a blatant violation of ancient property rights) was added in order to attract large numbers of investors, most of which did not have sufficient shares to exert much control. Basically they changed property rights that had existed in the common law for centuries in order to facilitate modern businesses. By itself that was a good idea, but never forget that corporations are entirely artificial creations of the law, and so can be limited by the law as seen fit.
only allow individual human beings to donate to campaigns, and then only in campaigns they can vote in. Bam, money out of politics instantly.
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Dude its bribery, if I tell you "I will give you a million dollars because you will vote my way" then you sure as hell ain't gonna bite the hand that feeds by voting a way you know i won't like, will you?
This is why we don't even have Coke VS Pepsi anymore, but Coke in a can VS Coke in a bottle, because its the same corps paying the bills behind the scenes. why do you think that despite poll after poll saying most Americans are center left that we have only a far right wing and an extreme right wing party to choose from? why do you think Obama stuck with damned near every policy that Dubya had, no matter how hated it was by the left?
The answer is simple and was illustrated perfectly by the late great Bill Hicks over 20 years ago: "I believe the puppet on the left shares MY beliefs! Well I believe the puppet on the right has MY interests at heart....hey wait a minute, there is one guy working both puppets!". Hell Jessie Ventura said there was no difference between being a politician and being a wrestler, in both cases you don't break kayfabe and pretend to hate the other guy and once the camera quits rolling you are having lunch with the guy.
I mean why do you think the media practically jumps through flaming hoops to keep shit like gay marriage or religion in schools or some other shit that doesn't even show up in the top ten of most polls as the talking points? Because if they talked about what has been #1 on practically every poll for ages, the economy, why people might start demanding the congress pass laws that a corp might not like. Corps don't give a rat's ass about gay marriage or school prayer so you can talk about those all day long.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Somehow corporations are citizens these days.
I realize that is the meme popularized in the media. However if you actually read the Citizens United decision it says something different:
(1) Groups of people have the same rights as individuals.
(2) It does not matter if that group of people is a corporation, trade union, advocacy group, etc.
The CEO, or who ever was involved in committing a crime should go to prison just like any other citizen.
They do. Here's a top ten list, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/top-10-ceos-sent-to-prison_n_1527361.html.