Does Money Equal Power In American Politics Politics Essay

Does cash Equal Power In American government activity Politics demonstrateThis essay argues that specie does equal baron in American regime and that crusade reform is keep mum required in American fiat as this remains an ongoing worry.In order to show the impact of bullion in the American campaigning system I believe this essay should write down with a statement of the recent facts and figures in relation to the cost of campaigning in America. The 2012 campaign by Obama and Romney for the presidential race resulted in spending of all over $6 billion reported whichincludes currency spent by the campaigns of both candidates, outside concourses such as PACs, and independent organizations such as businesses1. In the evaluating of money and nation in the presidential campaigns we must also look at in the public eye(predicate) spending as this was supposed to be the answer in reforming the presidential campaigning. Campaign finance is not just a problem in the presidential campaigns, In 2010 $1.5 cardinal was the average spent by house incumbents and $11.2 million was the average spent by senate incumbents, these numbers which we will comp ar with those of challengers to see if there is any inequality2. These figures alone show the eye watering gravid amounts of money spent today by those in politics. There are umteen aspects that need to be looked at to determine if money mints he democracy of America. provided this is not a recent problem in America, money in elections has been a problem for legion(predicate) decades and finally an introduction of a cloak in 1971 was supposed to put this problem to bed.The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971 was created to restore hoi pollois confidence in the campaigning system as many muckle felt declamatory contri andors had the biggest voice in political campaigns. This required funding to be made public. The Watergate scandal revealed during President Nixons campaign proved the rotting that was inside the political system even with reforms in place as those who contributed spacious amounts were given positions as ambassadors in Nixons re-election committees, money equalling power3. This resulted in amendments creation made to the original FECA such as the creation of the Federal Election Committee (FEC) who would ensure laws such as declarations of contributions where adhered to and brought public funding into the picture to subdue to stop the catch of large contributors. However, even when efforts are made to propose campaign finance transparent to the public, there are still those who challenge this.In 1976 in the case of Buckley v Valeo, the reforms legislated by the FECA were brought to the courts. This case argued that the provisions made in the Act were unconstitutional. Here it was argued that money in politics was not degeneracy but instead it was a form of lyric, thus was protected by the first amendment of the Constitution of America and was a right of all Americans. It was decided that monetary contributions were an expression of ones tolerate for a candidate which was a democratic right4. This association of money equals speech has been the hindrance of any reform after that and still poses problems in reform. Justice John Paul Stevens in 2000 presented a forceful opinion that money is property and not speech, surely money couldnt equal speech when money is not evenly distributed, this would prove that those with the biggest wallet had the biggest voices. The need for further reform after an extremely large redirecting of contributions in the form of soft money led to further reform of the campaign system in the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA)5which targeted the booming problem of soft money during campaigns. This problem was as a result of the prov cerebrationnce of the FECA of organisations giving money indirectly to candidates this money was not recorded by the FEC and had an unlimited budget. This was abolis hed by BCRA to further start out to bring uninfectedness to all candidates and to puree, once again, ensure money did not equal power in America. Campaign reform in America tries to organize the impact of money a elbow room from the impact of politics. But lodge in groups and the subsequent PACs adopt still left a question mark on the influence of money on the campaigns.Louise Overacker in 1932 expressed her concerns that financing of elections in a democracy is a major problem and conjure upd the question of if democracies do not inevitably become government ruled by small groups6. This brings us into the discussion of interest groups and PACS and their impact on American Democracy. PACs are organisations created through the FECA to allow these organisations to raise and distribute money to campaigns, allowing more(prenominal) money to be directed at candidates. Many interest groups and large organisations create PACs7. Interest groups are cognize to support aims in polit ics in America, firstly to elect friends and defeat enemies and secondly to incr ease the number of people in political positions that share their views. air interest groups on the other hand will more than likely use the friendly incumbent rule of backing the incumbent that is certain to be re elected and generally shares their views rather than a challenger who may be more supportive of their interests but is not guaranteed to succeed in their campaign8. Why is this? Why not support the candidate who is more supportive of your cause and stand by them? This raises the suspicion of interest groups being more implicated with gaining the access of those in power. If interest groups are raising large quantities of funding for these candidates surely they are receiving something in return, otherwise why touch on to pump money into a wasted cause?9It is known that many people involved PACs are those that are healthy educated and part of the upper class society which raises the ques tion of is there an unbalance in the representation of society in America? As political scientist E.E Schattschneider said the flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the ethereal chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent10. If so this puts further questions on the American branding of democracy.However those who are against this view that interest groups and man-to-man contributions thwart democracy argue that it does the opposite. They, on the other hand, argue that interest groups are a direct result of a democratic state. They argue that interest groups and PACs increase peoples consciousness and interest in politics and whence improve democracy in expanding peoples knowledge in political matters, an aspect recognised by James Madison11. Therefore in theory this activity contributes to democracy in America. But interest groups and PACs as discussed above look after and bear on their own interests, they can do this by emphasising the negatives of another candidate through n egative campaigning12or issue advocacy or by promoting the official aspects of the candidate they are supporting. Therefore are they really serving the needs of the country or the needs of themselves? I feel they are only face after their own interests to try to increase those in support of the candidate that will outperform serve them in the event that they win their election. Interest groups and PACs are unlikely to use their funding to compare the candidates in a fair and democratic way in the aim of giving the public a fair and even view of each candidate. Their aim of promoting their interests will lead to thwarted pictures of candidates. The fact is that organisations that make contributions, especially those with significant financial resources, want to ensure they make a Return on Investment, thats what these contributions are from many PACs and interest groups, they are investments not donations. As said on Capitol Hill my vote is not for cut-rate sale but is available f or rent.13Public funding was created by the FECA to try to take the issue of money out of campaigns and to prevent corruption of wealthy individuals in politics. However those who took public funding had to abide by a budget given to them. The option of partial funding in presidential primaries was rejected by many as they began to use the system to benefit themselves. In 2000 George Bush decided to reject partial funding in the primaries14. This was with the aim of using this time of to raise as much money as he could so that he could well out race the other opponents in his raising of funds so he was able to create more awareness of his campaign in the primaries over the opponents who were under strict instruction to stick to their public budgets. Bush easily received the nomination he needed but then used public funding in the general election as he has the awareness of his campaign already generated. This shows that even the candidates themselves are thwarting the system to im prove their own campaigns without regard for other candidates chances of receiving recognition or a fair campaign. The ease of which Bush succeed proved that the money he received equalled power in his race for nomination despite the public funding being in place. More worryingly this year neither Obama nor Romney accepted public funding. Why? Because more money can be gathered from independent sources. A stimulate thought considering how much they raised. Is the ideology of a public funding system becoming extinct?15if so it is direct proof that money equals power.Why is public funding being abandoned by candidates for the White House? Mainly it is due to the growth of tops(predicate) PACs and dark money16. Super PACs seem to be replacing the previous spurt of 527 committees who raised money to influence the outcome of elections by raising unlimited amounts of money. Once this money was not used in conjunction with the candidates campaign and did not openly call for the defeat or election of a particular candidate it was completely legal. However now Super PACs can collect money from both individuals and corporations, they also cannot give money directly to the candidate but can use the money raised singly to help ensure the election of there preferred candidate. In the 2012 election the estimated money raised from outside groups was $970 million, this increase is being linked to the increase in Super PACs. $123 million is the estimated amount spent by dark money.17Dark money was a phrase adopted by the Mother Jones Magazine18which referred to the cloak-and-dagger donations given to candidates by individuals and organisations. These donations occur in all political campaigns but seem to be most a part of the republican party fundraising. If people or businesses are able to donate large quantities of money to candidates without them being made public we again have to ask how this affects democracy in America. Money donated to campaigns that are not made pu blic means that we are unable to see if there is a correlation between the money those secret donors have given and the decisions of the lawmakers. However the question on money in politics applies to all elections including those in the house and senate between incumbents and challengers.As mentioned in the introduction the power difference between incumbents and challengers in the house and senate where public funding isnt in place is extremely large. This difference boils down to money. Incumbents have the benefit of being well known and formal and therefore do not need to spend vast amounts on creating public awareness. They also have loyal contributors already established to their campaign. Challengers on the other hand struggle to raise the money needed to create awareness of their campaign. Often the incumbents merely raise large quantities of money to disapprove competition from new challengers. Is it a democracy where people are not made aware of new challengers due to th e large spending of incumbents? When new challengers do not even get a chance due to the impact on money? It is known that people vote for those they recognise and reject those they have a lack of information on. Between 1984-2004 57% of challengers spent less than $100,000 on their campaigns and all of them lost19. Money equals power.I have discussed many things within the American campaign system that make me question the branding of America as a Democracy due to the corruption caused by money. But does money actually get those who contribute a foot in the door? Political scientist say that the contributions of PACs does not have a major impact on legislators decisions, this is because although there is a direct correlation between donations and votes, there is no proven relationship between donations and lawmakers decisions20. However this will always be problematical to prove as you cannot match contributions on a quid pro quo basis. It may have been found that money doesnt buy votes in congress but it is proven that contributors do get the loyalty of those in congress. It is known that contributions do achieve access21such as meetings with the candidates they have supported. Since most organisations will support those who are already in support of their views the do not need to persuade the candidate on their interests, therefore many of the PACs interests may be try to be mobilised through congressional committees. An example of money buying access can be seen in the Bush administration. Bush rewarded those who donated money to his Pioneer bundle system, most of whom were wealthy energy company official, business executives and lobbyists, with individual meeting and receptions, later Bush appointed 19 of the members as ambassadors worldwide22Would the lack of large donations have the same impact? We also saw that in the reign of Nixon those who donated large amounts became part of his re election committees, would this have been the case without the lar ge donations? And would the contributors continue to donate without anything in return? It is unlikely. The young York Times gave the statistics that since Obamas election in 2008 to now, those who donated $30,000 or less, about 20% of these visited the White House, were those who donated over $100,000 where about 75% more likely to visit the President.23Statistics that dont prove anything other than money equals power and access.Although reform was again attempted again through BCRA in 2002, there still seems to be problems within the campaign finance system. There are many suggested ways in which reform can be achieved. One is the idea of imposing ceilings on the amount spent in campaigns, but this may affect the competitive aspect of the campaigns. This also wouldnt help the challengers who already struggle to make themselves known to voters, therefore the well known incumbents would benefit leading to further questions of money impacting democracy. Another possible solution is to ban PACs and stopping large donations and let candidates rely on small donations to fund their campaigns but this is unlikely to raise enough funds.24The idea of public funding seemed to be the perfect solution as it took the importance of large donators out of the picture and put limits in place by candidates. If this was put in place for all elections in the house, congress as well as the presidential elections, this would reduce the amount spent on elections. However, the budgets of these public funds need to be increased to encourage candidates to be a part of this system. It may also attract candidates who dont want to waste too much time in their campaign raising money if the budget is right25. The problem with this is that this idea has been branded welfare for politicians an idea disliked by the American society.26The judgment by the courts that money equals speech also needs to be revisited. With this opinion being circulated it is only benefitting those with money. In o rder to pursue interests through politics, money and access is needed, but these are things not equally distributed, this makes you wonder how is this a democracy if it is allowing the people with these abilities to use them to push their ideas?27In conclusion, the problem is that many of the ideas for reform have as many positives as negatives, there seems to be no direct way to solve the problem of corruption within the political system and to prevent money from equalling power. In the last reform there was a corset affect that what was squeezed in one place merely popped out in another28in the increasing of 527 committees and the creation of Super PACs. It is viewed that this will be the case in any reform as John McCainn stated I promise you that in 20 or 30 years from nowa group of others will be standing here saying weve got to clean up the system again, because therell be smart people that figure out loopholes in the system. I doubt he foresaw the speed at which these loopho les would be found. The fact of the matter is that money will always be the fuelling of politics in America and therefore until some way is found to take money out of politics money will equal power. As this essay title says America has the best democracy money can buy.BibiographyBook sourcesJon R Bond and Kevin B Smith, The promise and performance of American Democracy. Thomson/Wadsworth 2009Lowi, Shepsle, Ginsberg. American Government power and purpose. 7th ed. upstart YorkNorton 2002Tonnahill, Neal R, American government policy and politics, 11th ed, Pearson study edition 2012Robert Singh, American government and politics A concise introduction. Sage 2003.McKay, Haughton and Wroe. Controversies in American Politics and Society. Oxford UK, Malden,MassBlackwell 2002Robert Singh, Governing America The politics of a divided democracy. Oxford University Press 2003.Samuel Kernell and Gary C Jacobson. The logic of American politics. Cq Press 2006, 3rd editionBardes, Shmidt and Shelley, American government and politics today. 2004-2005 ed, London Wasworth 2003Internet sourcesThe Atlantic Wire last accessed on 19/12/12The New York Times last accessed 20/12/2012The New York Times http//www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/us/politics/white-house-doors-open-for-big-donors.html?pagewanted=all last accessed 20/12/12