Friday, April 04, 2014

Who Buys Votes? Incumbents, Not the Rich

Who Buys Votes? Incumbents, Not the Rich « Commentary Magazine:
Yet what often goes unnoticed or is, in fact, tolerated, is a different sort of corruption that is far more common than millionaires purchasing members of Congress. 
As Byron York wrote yesterday in the Washington Examiner, the ability of incumbent politicians to raid the public treasury for expenditures to buy the votes of certain constituencies is not only legal, it is the most decisive form of campaign finance available.

York went to Louisiana to report on the uphill reelection race of Senator Mary Landrieu, an ObamaCare supporting Democrat seeking reelection in an increasingly deep red state.
Polls show her in a dead heat against likely Republican opponent Rep. Bill Cassidy.
But, as York found out, a lot of people whom one would think would be working to defeat Landrieu—including at least one local GOP official—are backing her.
Why?
Because Landrieu, who is seeking a fourth term in the Senate, has been lavishing some of New Orleans’ white suburbs—whose swing voters will probably decide the election—with a deluge of federal money, including a loan forgiveness provision inserted into a Homeland Security Appropriations bill, and every manner of post-Hurricane Katrina disaster funding known to the federal government.

No comments: