Forum Post: Campaign finance: the fatal flaw in US democracy
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 19, 2011, 1:05 p.m. EST by peacejam
(114)
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-66.1% of all campaign contributions come from only 0.11% of the population who donate over $200 to a candidate per year. http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/DonorDemographics.php
-Money wins elections (94% of election winners in 2008 had the most campaign funds). http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/DonorDemographics.php
-Therefore, all of our politicians (Democrat/Republican/Independent) have overwhelming incentive to protect the interests of the 0.11% wealthy donors, and secure the biggest campaign stash. Remember, if they have less campaign funds than their opponent, they essentially have a 6% chance of being elected.
The game is rigged. It's a flaw with the system, not our politicians. We need to first and foremost demand that the system be fixed. One way to do this is to dramatically limit the amount of money an individual and corporation can donate to an election to a level almost all Americans can afford. $100? $20? Whatever it is, it has to be much less than the limit right now, which is $117,000 total every two years to the candidates and political action committees. 99% of us can't possibly afford that. http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/citizens.shtml
If you think campaign finance is corrupting our democracy, sign this petition, www.getmoneyout.com. It's led by MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan, and has over 200,000 signatures so far. It's a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would dramatically reform campaign finance.
Like.
There is already a bill . Not sure all the details are right, but I think this is a good starting point.
http://fairelectionsnow.org/
Until a constitutional convention on corporate personhood, there cannot be any real change.
Expect tons of foreign money to come into the poisonous chamber of Commerce--their secret slush fund, where they will try to buy off the naive voting public.
Corporate personhood is a major problem. But I don't like to hear "there cannot be any real change" because that's just not true. The problems with our government right now are so deep and multifaceted, there are a number of changes that need to be addressed. Corporate personhood is without question one of the defining problems, but there are more than one.