The public Opinion of the futility and the infertility of the government and our elected officials is not based on a theory of some sort or on a misleading mainstream media report, but it is a direct result of observing the reality that we live in.
It is not a hidden truth that we live in the wealthiest country in human history by far and still, 30 million Americans have no health insurance. And, the rest who have health insurance struggle to pay their medical bills, or cannot afford their medication or skip visiting the doctor altogether for their inability to afford it.
It is also not a hidden truth that 12% of the people live under the poverty line, and 78% of the people live on a paycheck to a paycheck, or that 1 in 4 children in the country suffers from food insecurity. Worse, the truth of having more 500 hundred thousand citizens sleep on the streets every night, can be known simply by driving your car around the city.
So, what is the problem? Why are we struggling to live in our country? Why do we spend as much as twice more than the other developed countries on healthcare and don’t get it? Why do we need to work two or three jobs to be able to afford a decent housing?
There are many answers and many aspects that are beyond my scope to discuss here. But, I will talk about one of the most essential reasons for these problems: The congress.
This widespread public pessimism was validated by a study published in 2014 by political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page from Princeton and Northwestern universities. They examined 1,779 federal policy change decisions over a 20-year period covering three Republican and two Democratic administrations. Their research compared the influence of (1) the general public reflected in opinion surveys, (2) the economic “elite” represented by survey respondents at the 90th income percentile, (3) organized interest groups, and (4) business interest groups. The economic elite had the most influence, followed by business interests, while “preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”[1]
Why do politicians keep ignoring our needs? Why our congress prioritizes their interests and the elites instead of our interests? don’t we live in a democratic country? Don’t we choose our congress and president in every election? So, what is the problem?
The problem is that we the people have allowed our politicians to accept bribes from our plutocrats, the oligarchs who have been able to kidnap our democracy buy donating (bribing) to our elected officials’ campaigns. Someone would say that it is illegal to bribe an elected official, so why are we claiming here that we are allowing it?
The answer is, yes, we prohibited our officials from receiving any form of money or funds that fall under the title ‘Bribe’, but the corrupt people have figured out a way around it. That is, they started calling it ‘contributions’ and ‘donations’ instead of ‘bribes.’ The mere change in the term made it possible for our officials to receive funds from corporations and ideological PACs legally, while the reality is that the mere change in the term does not transform things from being hideous to be good if they function the same. Calling ‘bribes’, ‘contributions’ is just a manipulation of words which what politicians best do. When we look up the word ‘bribe’ in the dictionary we can easily find that its definition is 100% applicable to the donations and contributions that is being made by corporation and PACs to our politicians.
According to Meriam-Webster: the bribe is “money or favor given or promised in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust.”[2]. We elect politician because we trust them that they will serve us and defend our rights to the best of their abilities. Isn’t that why we cast our votes in their favor? Isn’t crystal clear that all that the corporations and PACs want is to maximize their profit and further their agendas?
As a result of this manipulation, we permitted politicians to be owned and controlled by a few rich and powerful people that do not care about what is good for the people when it contradicts their interests.
Campaign donations and contributions is a very well-organized system that has long been a destructive instrument for our democracy and our country. The shocking numbers below explains how much money was invested in the last 20 years in our politics. [3]
| Industry | Total spending |
| Pharmaceuticals/Health Products | $4,225,783,892 |
| Insurance | $2,857,596,698 |
| Electric Utilities | $2,477,036,979 |
| Electronics Mfg & Equip | $2,382,718,947 |
| Business Associations | $2,352,690,187 |
| Oil & Gas | $2,223,070,083 |
| Misc Manufacturing & Distributing | $1,792,540,814 |
| Education | $1,712,803,559 |
| Hospitals/Nursing Homes | $1,712,455,550 |
| Securities & Investment | $1,647,817,613 |
| Real Estate | $1,637,221,143 |
| Telecom Services | $1,626,051,464 |
| Health Professionals | $1,542,661,369 |
| Civil Servants/Public Officials | $1,518,259,703 |
| Air Transport | $1,510,201,949 |
| Health Services/HMOs | $1,181,678,223 |
| Automotive | $1,167,360,963 |
| Defense Aerospace | $1,140,037,196 |
| Misc Issues | $1,116,090,183 |
| TV/Movies/Music |
$1,092,787,039 |
It is important to notice that these numbers are the total corporate money spent in the past 20 years where the democrats and republicans were exchanging the roles between them and made sure that – to continue serving their special interests, no outsider be in charge of lawmaking other than them. Both of them, for nearly fifty years, are serving special class of people which we often refer to as the 1%.
Our democracy has been abused and misused to serve the rich and powerful while we have been left to struggle and suffer. This form of oppression has to stop. And the effective solution to this dilemma is banning and criminalizing any campaign money that does not come from individual citizen or resident. We must also limit these individual contributions to make sure that no one will have more advantage over the other because of his financial status.
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The most spending companies in politics .
Industries, policies and lobbying
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[1] american politics for the elites