Note on ‘Super PAC’ Dollars

November 1, 2010 Leave a comment

The Super PAC’s will add to shaping future elections in the US by interested in both political parties.  The Supreme Court has opened the flood gate for this kind of financing, whether we like it or not.  What will hoped for democracy may be manipulated for groups with the money to do so–hopefully, voter will wake up and change our system of paid-for-politicians.

The independent-expenditure-only “Super PAC” committees are perfect for corporations and unions that want to spend for or against candidates. Former McCain ’08 counsel and FEC Chairman Trevor Potter described them as the “holy grail” of campaign finance to The Washington Post.

“There’s much less disclosure than even with 527s and there’s no danger in running afoul of the law by accepting large individual contributions, or contributions from previously prohibited sources–corporations and labor unions,” wrote Rick Hasen, the William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law at Loyola Law School and author of the Election Law blog, in an email.

“Super PACs” do have to disclose their donors (unlike 501(c)(4) social welfare groups such as American Crossroads GPS), but many of them are simply too new. Ending Spending incorporated on Oct. 5, and voluntarily disclosed that its sole financier and founder was Joe Ricketts, owner of the Chicago Cubs and founder and former CEO of Ameritrade. The group is soliciting other donations as well.

via Millions of ‘Super PAC’ dollars flow through Tampa and into races nationwide « Florida Independent: News. Politics. Media.

Filed under Florida, Politics

Meek’s Ploy

October 29, 2010 Leave a comment

It is hard to understand how a politician gains by purposefully losing, and in the process ensures that the winning candidate is his political opposite.

The response is intransigence, ineptitude, a personal vendetta, irrationality or an unwillingness to work for the greater good.  Meek is doing more damage to his party than Marco Rubio could have ever aspired.

Let Democratic candidates in 2012  be aware of the backlash of Independents and Democrats the next time around.

Filed under Florida, Politics

Can Coral Gables Politics Change?

October 27, 2010 Leave a comment

The following conceptually might be a view of the economy of the city of Coral Gables, with its local income inequality (clearly, not as bad as the national income distribution because of fewer poor); lawyer, developer, real estate and university interests who have captured city hall; and a voting class that prefers to vote against its own interests than risk changes in local government, even though government has been an outright financial fiasco and tolerant of taxes increases, even in bad times.

The obscene income inequality bequeathed by the three-decade rise of the financial industry has societal consequences graver than even the fundamental economic unfairness. When we reward financial engineers infinitely more than actual engineers, we “lure our most talented graduates to the largely unproductive chase” for Wall Street riches… Worse…the continued squeeze on the middle class leads to a wholesale decline in the quality of American life — from more bankruptcy filings and divorces to a collapse in public services, whether road repair or education, that taxpayers will no longer support.

via What Happened to Change We Can Believe In? – NYTimes.com.

The so-called “quality of life” that the city claims  to defend produces benefits for a few close interests in the city and a commercial development that is being paid for proportionally more by the middle class.  This will not change unless the taxpayers vote in more representative and progressive commissioners and mayor, but the city’s history is influenced more by the stream of money going to the favored candidates of interest groups.

The city government and it friends are surely over estimating the future path of the US economy and, except for a very few who always benefit from either growth or stagnation, the future will not exempt the city’s citizens from more taxes.

Filed under Coral Gables, Politics

Outsider’s Description of our Political System

October 25, 2010 Leave a comment

An outsider’s description of our political system (from top to bottom) may be hard to swallow and this description also applies to local and state governments.  Take our Miami-Dade government and Coral Gables government as examples of non-functional or partially functioning governments with deep financial and management problems.

A winner-takes-all voting system where both main parties are sustained by corporate financing, the congressional districts are openly gerrymandered and 40% of the upper chamber can block anything, is never going to be a benign vehicle for radical reform. Virtually every enduring progressive development in US politics since the war has been sparked either by massive mobilisations outside of electoral politics that have forced politicians to respond, or through the courts.

via Obama was never going to have the room to effect radical change | Gary Younge | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Filed under Coral Gables, Florida, Miami-Dade County, Politics

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