Eric Wallace | Contributing Writer
Dysfunction in government; it is something all of us realize exists, but the root cause is often misinterpreted as partisan squabbles. The endless blame goes in a consuming circle with no resolution and leaves the American people with no base of information with which to fix the problem of constant inaction. The answer is as simple as the complexity it creates: money. Money is the backbone of the world infrastructure, and its inclusion in the political process has essentially made it the infrastructure upon which Congress functions.
Now, how this perpetuates into government dysfunction is a rather straightforward process. First step, multi-million and multi-billionaire corporations donate millions of dollars into the campaigns of various candidates across the country from both sides of the aisles. After the candidates the corporations support are elected into office, Congressional representatives of the people are free to propose bills and vote as they please; however, the corporations that elected them call in the return of their campaign contributions. Now the second step of this process takes effect; if the Congressman does not vote how the corporations requested they vote or does not propose the legislation they wanted proposed, the corporations will spend even more money ensuring the Congressman who did not follow their wishes is primaried out of their spot.
While this may seem trifling to some, its sweeping effects on our lives are vast. The crisis in Syria, where Congress voted on giving the president authority to use force in the region, had a very telling feature to how people voted. That feature, one may wonder, included those who voted for the use of force in Syria which received at minimum 100% more campaign contributions than those who voted against it. Not a single vote on either side of the ballot, regardless of party ties, faltered from where their campaign contributions fell. We, as a country, nearly committed acts of war upon another country based, not upon national discourse and opinions, but upon campaign contributions.
Post Sandy Hook, the call for some form of national gun reform swept the nation leading to a 92% popular opinion and agreement that universal background checks should be made into national law. The National Rifle Association’s (NRA), the lobbying group for gun, weapon, and ammunition manufacturers, contributions and threats of primary support against those who voted for universal background checks lead to the bill dying in the Senate under filibuster.
Our current government shutdown is being fully paid for by two, I repeat two, individuals: The Koch brothers. Each worth a little over 30 billion dollars apiece, they together started the movement that would become the Tea Party in order to influence their political agenda in Washington. They have collectively spent over 200 million dollars this year alone in order to fight against the Affordable Care Act. They literally sat down days after the 2012 election and planned the current shutdown in order to enact their personal will upon the national discourse. Despite over 70% of the American people saying they do not agree with shutting down the government as a way to defund or repeal the Affordable Care Act, those who have received the money from the various groups from the Koch brothers, have continued to keep the government in its current state.
Something needs to be done to correct this imbalance. The American people are the only voices that our representatives should be listening to, yet they do not. The only voice that are listened to are the representative’s campaign contributors. I encourage everyone to find a way to support changing this system back to a forum for public discourse to be carried out by the beliefs of the people of this country and not by the competing demands of the corporations’ bottom lines.
Graphic by Grace Bodey
