No dark money in Alaska

Do you have enough extra cash to fund massive lobbying campaigns? Outrageously expensive political campaigns? Could you afford it year after year, decade after decade? The wealthiest in our country can. 

They use their funds to acquire special preferences in law and regulations. Tax rates, cuts, breaks, loopholes, credits, deductions, concessions, amortization schedules, accelerated depreciation and lower rates on types of income. The nearly endless list is now contained within 75,000 pages of IRS code, regulations and rulings.

Only the wealthiest few have the massive financial capacity it takes to twist the rules. They bend and distort society. The wealthiest include big corporations, big businesses and billionaires.

Their financial capacity and motivation to manipulate society for their own gain uses wealth to not only lobby for preferential changes but, importantly, to elect politicians willing to give to the few, without regard for the needs of all. When the wealthiest engage in class warfare against America’s middle class, society degrades. 

A risk to democracy arises when the richest and most powerful acquire such special treatment. 

When the richest and most powerful acquire and sustain their preferential advantage — their special treatment, the foundation of our democracy cracks. And what is that foundation? The middle class. In other words: The middle class recognizes they are left behind because they are.

The wealthiest create an unfair society where the rich grow much richer from preferential laws and government favors acquired over decades.  Those decades create an upward concentration of wealth and power. As Warren Buffett commented, about 20 years ago: “There’s class warfare, alright.” He continued: “But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Winning at the expense of the bottom 90%.

Buffett was upset because he saw actual injustice perpetrated by the rich class upon the vast majority of Americans. He saw and understood the effects of the preferential treatment given the rich class which resulted in his secretaries and clerks paying a higher share of their income than he did on his vastly higher income.

Starting from the early 1980s to 2020, more than $50 trillion transferred from the bottom 90% to the rich class. The per year transfer now from the bottom 90% is more than $2.5 trillion. Nearly all of the benefit of our nation’s growth is now captured by the very top. America’s bottom 90% is paid a fraction of their productivity as compared to the distribution of wealth from the end of WWII to the late 1970s. 

 Democracy can be lost when the nation’s financial system embeds ways to transfer wealth to the already wealthy. This dysfunction gives the already wealthy greater access to elected officials through lobbyists and capacity to donate to campaigns. Wealth concentration promotes dark money, anonymous and hidden money distorting and manipulating society. Dark money arises because the rich class doesn’t want specific names connected to the dastardly conduct they promote. Corruption increases as the mindset of the wealthiest people changes from simple greed to wanting it all. Corruption is used to transfer public money to the wealthiest and favored.

 Our nation seems to be a diminishing empire in which corruption and favoritism increases as rule of law decreases.

 As corruption increases, an ever-stronger belief arises that the political system is hopeless or meaningless. When you vote: are you for the bottom 90% or are you for the wealthiest?

 A result of unchecked corruption and favoritism is a government that cares more for corporations and billionaires than for average people. As a national sense of weariness increases, it displaces our nation’s optimism. The few “winners” rise much higher while the “others” sense the train has left without them.  

An unfair system provides for and protects the rich class. Those that are not within the rich class are promised a “trickle” which may come tomorrow. A pipeline flow for the rich and a trickle, maybe, for all others.  

When one man spends $290,000,000 to support a presidential candidate’s campaign and then is granted control of a new government agency, corruption and favoritism are surely nearby. How much will it cost dark money to purchase a U.S. Senate seat or state Governor’s office? Both wealth concentration and anonymous money shake the foundations of democracy.

Democracy can be protected. Massive lobbying and massive political campaign donations can be curtailed. Dark money can be banned. Our laws and regulations should be cleansed of preferential treatment which unfairly concentrates wealth.  

A starting point is a NO vote on Ballot Measure 2. No dark money should be allowed in campaigns or lobbying in Alaska.