Gaming for the Trough

In an analysis published in the National Post, Charles Babington looks at the fiscal cliff deal and writes how for many individual lawmakers, the “crisis” is politically good for them, and not really by fault of their own.

The article does well to show the game that’s being played at the public expense. Lawmakers want to stay in power and not be overthrown and thusly play on the ignorance of the electorate, who “abhor tax hikes, or spending cuts, that any bipartisan compromise must include. Many of these voters detest compromise itself, telling elected officials to stick to partisan ideals or be gone.”

This is what we see as the game of politics, as opposed to statesmanship. Babington writes that the US “Congress’ repeated struggles are less bewildering when viewed not from a national perspective but through the local lens of typical lawmakers, especially in the House.” Babington continues,

For the scores of representatives from solidly conservative districts – or solidly liberal ones – the only realistic way to lose the next election is by losing a primary contest to a harder-core partisan from the same party. The notion of “being primaried” strikes more fear in many lawmakers’ hearts than does the prospect of falling stock markets, pundits’ outrage or a smudge on their national party’s reputation.”

Republican Representative Marsha Blackburn is quoted as saying that 86% of her district believe the nation’s deficit should be addressed entirely by spending cuts. This is a position that, in the face of the Great Recession, and the great inequality between rich and poor in America, can simply be called “ideological”. In reality it is ignorance, but because the way the system is structured, that true education of the electorate on matters of historical import is for whatever reason unreachable, politicians play on those ignorances if only for their own benefit and preservation.

This is a “race to the intellectual bottom” that hurts America, and consequently the world.

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When not engaged in demagogical politics, representatives scout lobbyists for fundraising. Normally, as Andrea Seabrook and Alex Blumber write in a series on money in politics for NPR, we think of lobbyists stalking Members of Congress, exchanging gifts and money for favourable bits of legislation. Apparently this is reversed as of 2012: Members of Congress stalk lobbyists for contributions.

Why would they do this?

Because over 80% of the time, the candidates who spend the most money on their campaign win. And as this Young Turks segment shows, companies pay into lobbyists who deal with Members of Congress who want to stay in office and through these middlemen strike deals that would see fundraisers to the benefit of the Member of Congress who in turn legislate a certain way.

If the politician doesn’t do it, there would certainly be another who would take them out in the primary given half a chance to feed at the same gilded trough of American “democracy”.