Position Paper One- Money and Politics
Discuss Ways Money Has Influenced the Political Process in the US
Thesis Statement
Money has always been one of the fundamental sources and mediums that lead politicians to power.
This is not only limited to electoral campaigns and presidential elections. Money influences the decision of choosing the people in the US state which would be beneficial to the donating commercial giants, groups, and individuals.
However, this does not mean that the Americans approve of that. A vast majority of US citizens, about 84%, have the belief that money has a big influence on the political campaigns as shown by the CBS News/New York Times Poll. And to say this, it is not limited only one political party, but is present across all lines with 90% of Democrats, 80% of Republicans and 84% of the Independents having the same opinion. Super PACS, which was founded by the use of the 2010 Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court has the liberty to accept unlimited donations from any corporations, individuals, and groups. Even unaffiliated groups of the candidate can spend millions on advertising of the candidate. 78% of Americans disapprove of such spending on advertisements while 19% agrees (Frumin, 2015).
More of the Americans want the contributors to disclose their full donations. Before the Citizens United decision, candidates were restricted from accepting very limited contributions from their donors. That system forced the candidates to compete, however, after PACS; single billionaire can create a super PAC for its candidate (Frumin, 2015).
However, it is important to look at it deeply. It is not easy to separate money from politics. At its core, the democratic electoral system is the battle or ideas and personalities. And the only way for the candidates to get majority voters on their side is to reach and inform them. And doing that takes money, whichever way you do it. Whether it is for paying to advertise agencies, or to run a website, or to have a social media platform, or to hire staff, held rallies or events for media coverage, everything costs money in one way or another. Even though local office campaigns can be run cheaply, reliance on volunteers can be increased; social media can be more used in place of paid advertising; however, these are not completely free as well (Berman, 2016).
Even if all the transparency in the disclosure system is also implemented on the PACS, the wealthy would always find a way to influence the elections. It calls for the importance of empowering the average citizen by expanding the public financing system, both on the local and federal level for campaigns. What we can do is that we can ask for increased transparency for the donations so that people can know, why do they see this advertisement and who is funding it. It would not only endorse the candidate’s reputation, but also provide the people with the type of government; he or she would run as being supported by these donators. For example, the recent gun-control controversies show the same case (Desliver, 2015).
The controversy on the second amendment and the number of school shootings has led the individuals to look for politicians who have been getting funds from the National Rifle Associations. The reality of gun-control would mean a constant loss in sales for this association. Candidates being advertised and funded by the NRA would show the individuals that this candidate would never take any step against the NRA as NRA is one of the main donators in his or her electoral campaign and thus, he or she cannot go against their financial loss. This would allow the individuals to be aware of the reputation of the candidate and thus choose wisely.
References
Berman, R. (2016, March 16). How Can the U.S. Shrink the Influence of Money in Politics? Retrieved from The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive
/2016/03/fix-money-in-politics/473214/
Desliver, D. K. (2015, December 7). As more money flows into campaigns, Americans worry about its influence. Retrieved from Pew Research: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/07/as-more-money-flows-into-campaigns-americans-worry-about-its-influence/
Frumin, A. (2015, June 2). Money has too much of an influence in politics, Americans say. Retrieved from MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/money-has-too-much-influence-politics-say-americans
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