Soft Money in Economics

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Soft Money in Economics

With each election cycle rolling around every 4 years, the various political parties, especially the Republican and Democratic parties, are setting new records for campaign contributions and raising higher and higher amounts of money toward their goals. It seems elected officials spend more and more time on fundraising and less time on working for the people they are sworn to serve! Now what is wrong with that picture? Does the phrase "We have the best government money can buy," mean what it says? If it did, our nation would be in serious trouble. Only ¼ of 1% of the people give 80% of all campaign contributions. These special interest groups and wealthy individuals are controlling the people's government. Whether the issues are concerned over the military, education, Medicare, or Middle East issues, individuals like you and me have little or no say in what should be done to correct the situation. Soft money and the whole campaign finance reform issue is a very big concern to our economy. Yes it does have a more political stance then an economic stance but it will affect the regular hard working families of our nation.

Have you ever taken the time to actually read the U.S. tax codes? If not, you are very lucky. It's a huge mess and hardly readable, but there is a reason why you can't read it. Former Sen. Wyche Fowler (D-Georgia) once said, " [E]very single interest that comes to you has got a special private interest where they are seeking to get subsidized, through the tax code…" Tax bills are a good place to hide those special legislative favors congressmen and women receive when they are elected. With the money donated from insurance industries, health professionals, and law firms and a huge amount of special interest groups, the resulting factor ends up being a tax system skewed toward big-money interests. How will this affect your standard of living? Well…lets look at the something everyone has problems with and that is oil and gas prices. The gas industry is a very generous industry for politicians and in turn very prosperous in reaping the benefits. In the '98 election cycle, gas companies gave over $22 million in soft money contributions. This huge contribution gave gas companies a long list of tax breaks created by a Congress that is supposed to be the best money can buy.

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