THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 4, 1996 TAG: 9607040001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A17 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Glenn Allen Scott
LENGTH: 94 lines
The French say, ``Tell me who butters your bread and I'll tell you whose song you sing.''
The French are not singular in their cynical observation that dependency breeds servility. We Americans say, ``He who pays the piper calls the tune.''
True, universally.
So no one should be surprised - or shocked - that politicians who necessarily rely upon major contributors of money or campaign foot soldiers or other aid to win or retain elective office are kindly disposed toward their benefactors. And, of course, attentive to their benefactors' wishes.
Corporate America has the biggest voice in decisions made in Washington and state capitals because it has the biggest wallet.
That Corporate America speaks loudly and often frequently to our elected representatives is also wholly understandable. Corporate America has a gigantic stake in government policies involving taxation, regulation of commerce, foreign trade, environmental protection, health care, worker health and safety, private-sector pensions, liability for dangerous products. . . .
Credit-card sponsors want governments to permit them to exact as much in interest on unpaid balances and late-payment penalties and instant-loan fees as the market will bear before consumers riot in the streets, and many state governments grant them permission.
Manufacturers succeeded for years in holding off restrictions on the poisons that industries poured into air, water and ground or sold to unwitting consumers despite scientists' findings about how much harm the toxins were doing to all life, including human.
Savings-and-loans succeeded in winning deregulation. Taxpayers were subsequently stuck with a multibillion-dollar-bailout bill. Freed thrifts engaged in reckless, deceptive and crooked practices that led to monstrously costly S&L failures when the real-estate market collapsed.
The National Rifle Association's contributions to friendly politicians and power to intimidate unfriendly ones explains the U.S. House of Representatives' vote to repeal the ban on military-style assault firearms, a ban that polls repeatedly show Americans at large favor overwhelmingly. The NRA primarily serves the interests of gun makers, gun importers and gun dealers by skillfully manipulating the fears of a minority of gun owners.
Organized labor became a big player in national politics in the 1930s and through the 1960s. Unions' influence was strongest in heavily industrialized Northeastern and Upper Midwestern states, weakest in the South and most of the West.
Government-employee unions have long been a growing political force, but private-sector unions' influence on politics waned as steel and automobile plants and a slew of other traditional enterprises shut plants, turned increasingly to automation or lost market share at home and abroad to foreign competitors.
Only this presidential-election year, after more than three decades' shrinkage in well-paid blue-collar jobs and nearly a decade's shrinkage in well-paid white-collar jobs, are private-sector unions again flexing political muscle.
Middle-income families are treading water or losing ground economically and the ranks of the poor are growing. Organized labor senses a chance to make a difference in the November presidential and congressional elections. The unions seek to tilt the vote decisively toward Bill Clinton and against Bob Dole and break the Republican grip on the House of Representatives.
And then there is all the spending and in-kind support for candidates that comes from sundry citizen lobbies. Lord, will the money roll in.
If you and I judge that our interests are trampled in the clash of Titans, there are countless reasons to believe we are right. The wonder is that as many of us vote as do, given the odds against us.
Big money year in and year out exerts a disproportionate influence upon politics and government in our constitutional democracy - all-too-often for the enrichment of the few at the expense of the many.
Nobody knows exactly what to do about this hard reality. Campaign-finance reforms have yet to diminish money's political influence. And a bipartisan reform bill that might - or might not - have leveled the playing field last week perished in the U.S. Senate.
Perhaps the most-useful way to deal with the money-in-politics dilemma would be to adopt the reform proposed by political-scientist Larry Sabato, of the University of Virginia, and Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn R. Simpson in their excellent recent book, Dirty Little Secrets: The Persistence of Corruption in American Politics.
Sabato and Simpson suggest that we forget about trying to limit campaign contributions or campaign spending. They dismiss, too, the financing of political campaigns with tax funds. Instead, they say, demand that (1) candidates disclose fully and in a timely manner how much aid they get from whom and (2) activist groups of all kinds be equally candid about ``the complete extent of their involvement in campaigns.''
Sabato and Simpson would boost penalties for lying, cheating and withholding pertinent information and enforce the toughened disclosure rules as rigorously as the Securities and Exchange Commission regulates the securities industry.
Full disclosure by givers and getters would arm the electorate with data it could put to good use at the polls, if - and it's a big if - the did its job, too. MEMO: Mr. Scott is associate editor of the editorial page of The
Virginian-Pilot. by CNB