Last Thursday, the congressional “super committee,” the group tasked with cutting 1.2 trillion dollars from the US budget over 10 years, met for the first time. That’s about all the useful information we know.
As far as specific legislation goes, the public doesn’t know what they talked about, what cuts were on the table, or how much money had been “contributed” to the committee members in the names of powerful interest groups, unions, corporations, and lobbying firms. This last part is what worries me most. 1.2 trillion dollars is a lot. 12 people decide what to do with it. Who is influencing that decision? Money talks, and until we know where the money is coming from, we don’t know who is talking to the super committee.
There’s no doubt that a cut in defense spending would be one of the easiest ways to minimize the burden of our debt. Will Lockheed Martin and Boeing let that happen? What about Big Oil or the farm lobbies? Both groups have substantial motivation to keep their subsidies intact. A few thousand dollars in re-election campaign donations to committee members is a great investment for millions in government handouts later.
This is how Congress works, every day of the year. And the super committee will only be a concentrated version of it. Is there any question why the Congressional approval rating is at 12 percent? The American people are having a hard time trusting politicians that more and more don’t seem to have their constituents’ best interests in mind.
Representative David Loebsack (D, Iowa) and four bipartisan cosponsors have put forth a bill that requires members of the committee to report any financial contributions they receive over $500, within 48 hours. This is a concrete step towards ensuring that the super committee is dedicated to producing legislation that answers the concerns of the American public directly, not through the filter of special interest lobbies.
There is a case to be made for donor privacy. The Federalist papers were written under pseudonyms to protect their authors from political pressure and danger. They were essentially protecting their free speech, so shouldn’t lobbyists and corporations have the same right to privacy? I don’t think so. If the actions of so few people can impact 300 million of us for a decade, things have moved way past the point of “free speech in a Democracy.” This is an oligarchy, and this isn’t what we signed up for.
The real issue here– the need for transparency– is clear. Until that issue is addressed, our understanding of the super committee will continue to be murky.
Photo credit: TheEpochTimes.com
