Congress is doing so much damage each week we need them to go on a permanent recess. This past week was no exception when they passed or on the verge of passing both the Disclosure Act and the Financial Reform Act.
The Disclosure Act is the Democrats way of trying to reduce the impact of the Supreme Court’s ‘Citizens United’ decision earlier this year. In Citizens United, the Supreme Court lifted many restrictions placed on businesses and organizations campaign contributions. The Supreme Court ruled, based on the first amendment and freedom of speech, all organizations and businesses can contribute as much as they wish to campaigns. Obviously, this decision angered Obama, who publically chastised the Supreme Court during his State of the Union Address. On the surface, the Disclosure Act sounds like good legislation. It requires all businesses and organizations to be transparent by disclosing their campaign contributions. This sounds harmless, but like many congressional bills there are many rules, restrictions, mandates, exceptions, and regulations included in the legislation.
The problem with the Disclosure Act, as with many federal government laws, it is not applied consistently amongst businesses and organizations. Unions, for instance, are exempt from disclosing how they spend employee’s dues on campaign contributions. On the other hand, many businesses, especially those that received Toxic Asset Relieve Plan (TARP) bailout monies are restricted in how much campaign contributions they can contribute. Once again, on the surface this seems fair since they received taxpayer money, but once again this exception is misleading. Consider the example of General Motors (GM) and the United Auto Workers (UAW). GM received TARP funds and is therefore, restricted in their first amendment rights to contribute to campaigns. Meanwhile, the UAW is not only free to contribute as much money as they want to campaigns, they do not have to disclose the information giving them a very broad interpretation of their first amendment rights. However, a large majority of the TARP funding that GM received went directly to the UAW so they can continue to pay retirement and other benefits. Remember, the UAW made no concessions and is one of the main reasons why GM went bankrupt and was forced to receive a TARP bailout. Is this fair? No! But this is a fair interpretation of the first amendment in the eyes of progressives. After all, corporations usually support conservative candidates while unions support liberal candidates. This will give liberals an unfair advantage in future local, state, and federal elections.
Proponents of the Disclosure Act quickly point out that it will provide greater transparency and oversight to the campaign contribution process. This may be true, but once again the way the bill is written it will create the opposite effect. For instance, one provision states any company that has more than 7 million dollars in government contracts will have their contributions limited. In essence, this provision will promote less transparency. Think about it; it will force those restricted companies to spend their money on lobbying instead of on campaign finance. And lobbying is far less transparent than campaign contributions. Thus, the act will not only unfairly restrict certain businesses their first amendment rights, it will actually be less transparent on how they spend their money to influence elections.
Most agree that a financial reform bill is and was necessary. However, the 2000 page monstrosity passed by congress fails to accomplish its main purpose: It will fail at preventing a future financial collapse. Therefore, the legislation is a complete waste of time, money, and resources. The financial reform legislation fails on many levels. First of all, most of the financial giants are happy with the legislation. This should not surprise anyone because they spent millions lobbying to get the legislation written in their favor. Yes, the legislation protects the financial giants because they are too big to fail, meanwhile, small banks are not protected. The legislation also falls short of properly reforming those dangerous derivative investments that were the backbone of the financial market collapse. The taxes levied on the banks in this legislation will be passed on to the consumer in the form of fees and other hidden charges. Chris Dodd, who heads the Senate Banking Committee and is the chief architect of the legislation, said something to effect “he is not sure how the bill will work, but it will affect every aspect of our lives”. Now that is a scary admission! And let’s not forget this bill does nothing to reform any federal government financial agencies that failed to prevent the financial collapse or aided in its collapse. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and the Securities Exchange Commission are free to continue their wasteful, bureaucratic, and incompetent ways.
With millions of barrels of oil spilling into the Gulf one would think our federal government would have more pressing issues to work on. And with Obama and Rahm Emanual’s name being mentioned in every tape recording in the Blagojevich trial one can only suspect they want to keep the American public’s focus off those proceedings. One way to accomplish this is by passing legislation that may seem as if it will aid the American people. However, Congress is actually passing porous legislation that will fail to accomplish its objectives. This is nothing new to the Obama administration that passed a 1 trillion dollar stimulus that has failed to create jobs; and healthcare reform legislation that will fail to curtail the rising costs of healthcare.
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