Corruption Is A Good Business Deal
In the early and mid-1990s, Sacramento juries convicted more than a dozen legislators, lobbyists and legislative aides of political corruption and sent them to jail. In some cases, the crime was selling “access” to legislators in return for campaign contributions.
But in Washington, D.C., selling access isn’t a crime, it’s an art form. And in their unseemly haste to raise every nickel they could grab in the 1996 election cycle, fund-raising specialists in both political parties have explored new ways of offering access for cash.
If these methods are acceptable under federal law, they shouldn’t be.
Indeed, the torrent of stories now coming out of Washington about the huge amounts of money both parties raked in last year and the methods used to raise it offer a sickening spectacle of how politics and public policy has been purchased by the highest bidders. This is not a new story, but each year it gets more obscene.
What is even worse - and that’s saying a lot - is the utter lack of urgency shown by key members of Congress and the White House to clean up their act.
There was a time not long ago, for example, when donors who ponied up $100,000 in “soft money,” that is, money contributed to political parties for “party-building activities,” were treated like royalty. Soft money is the loophole through which wealthy interests and labor unions have obliterated the laws on federal campaign spending limits. But even the $100,000 contributors are now, apparently, distinctly second tier.
A New York Times article earlier this week recounted how at least 75 individuals and corporations gave $250,000 or more to the Republican Party last year. Besides the traditional perks of meals with top party leaders, including Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole, and access to the GOP’s “skybox” at the national convention, they also got help from the party with “special problems” in Washington, or access to key GOP policy-makers in Congress who could help them legislatively.
“There is no question - if you give a lot of money, you will get a lot of access,” one senior executive, whose company contributed $500,000 to the GOP, told the Times. “All you have to do is send in the check.”
For their part, the Democrats got $250,000 or more in donations from 45 donors. Beyond that, the White House was relentless in setting up more than 100 “coffee klatches” with President Clinton. Within days of such meetings, large checks arrived. The Democrats raised $27 million that way. That sum dwarfs the $1.5 million in questionable and in some cases illegal money the Democratic National Committee has so far been forced to return to Asian contributors who are not citizens or U.S. residents.
The Times article pointed out that fund-raising events had become so crowded with $100,000 donors that it was difficult for the bigger fish to get any personal time with the politicians they seek to influence. That, in turn, led to the $250,000 mega-donors, who have become known as “season ticket holders” because they get access again and again.
All told, Clinton and the DNC raised $229 million for last year’s elections. Dole and the RNC raised one-third more, $312 million.
Most of this half-billion dollars did not come from average citizens or middle-income folks, but from wealthy individuals and corporations seeking some sort of break or special privilege from government.
In some instances, the special break they seek - whether easing some business regulation or changing a technical rule that affects Wall Street stock transactions, or bigger changes, such as telecommunications or utilities deregulation - is worth billions of dollars, or at least many millions. The campaign contribution is thus a minor cost of doing business.
A new report by the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, titled, “Cashing in: A Guide to Money, Votes and Public Policy in the 104th Congress,” documents this.
Last year’s bill to increase the minimum wage, for example, seemed straight-forward enough. But buried within it were these provisions: a tax credit for restaurants and pizza delivery companies (these interests donated $2.5 million in PAC funds and soft money; a phase-out of the luxury tax on cars ($4.2 million donated from the auto industry and dealers); and elimination of a tax on overseas earnings of corporations, something the pharmaceutical and computer companies wanted ($9.8 million in contributions).
The cost to taxpayers over 10 years from these changes, according to the Congressional Budget Office, is $590 million, which is a handsome return on “investment.”
In a speech to the DNC last week, Clinton proposed that the Democrats now limit soft-money contributions to no more than $100,000 - as if that were a significant reform.
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