A quote by former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis captures a central issue in America today:

"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few; we cannot have both."

Lately, concentration of wealth is winning - and democracy is losing out.

It is the reason why we must support public financing of campaigns - at every level, especially Congress, through the Fair Elections Now Act.

Where's the money?

Wealth is concentrating like a gravitational black hole. A Survey of Consumer Finances (data from 1983, by the Federal Reserve Board), says the wealthiest 1% of families owned over 34% in 1983, and the top 10% of families owned over 71% - while the bottom 40% of the population, four out of ten, owned way less than 1%.

And consider the trends. Author and political economist Kevin Phillips writes, "Between 1979 and 1989, the portion of the nation's wealth held by the top 1 percent nearly doubled, skyrocketing from 22 percent to 39 percent." (Wealth and Democracy, 2002, pg 92).

He continues, "In 1999 the New York Times reported that within the most prosperous fifth of U.S. households, national income growth was shared so unevenly that some 90 percent of that fifth's gain went to the top 1 percent! No one, then, should regard the $90,000-a-year accountant or $125,000-a-year lawyer - members of the top 5 or 10 percent - as fellow riders on the same glittering escalator as the investment banker making $1.5 million or the corporate CEO collecting $40 million in annual compensation." (Ibid. Emphasis original)

Does this reveal the need for campaign finance reform? You bet!

Keep in mind: money is power in Washington, D.C. - and in statehouses and cities across the land.

Public policy and lawmaking in America has been up for auction - and the high-bidders win.

At every level, money decides who can run and get elected, and to whom they are accountable as they pass budgets, make laws and decide public policy. Even our courts have become infected, wherever judges are elected.

When wealth is so powerful, and concentrated in a few hands, democracy is weakened and we have plutocracy - rule by a group of moneyed interests who, in effect, have bought the government.

As Washington Post editor Robert Kaiser writes: "Lobbyists and special interests have turned our government into a game that only they can afford to play ... Politics is no longer a mission; it's a business." Money Makes D.C. go round, Tacoma News-Tribune, 2/8/09.

In fact, our democracy is endangered. If we want to realize the promise of democracy, with opportunity and economic well-being for all, we must make it possible for lawmakers to win election while staying accountable to the people they are supposed to serve. We must support public financing of campaigns, with limits on the power of lobbyists to influence legislation with money.

This is not simply an exercise in philosophy of government.

The economic meltdown is a serious wakeup call. The growing concentration of wealth is both a cause and a symptom of our ills. The elected lawmakers and public officials who regulate commerce, who set the rules of the economic game, are themselves caught up in legalized bribery - cash from special interests buying campaigns and public policy. Their votes determine bailouts, budgets and tax policy - winners and losers. To whom are they really accountable when money is all-powerful?

It's a Catch-22 - asking them to change the very system they're caught in. But if we're not aware of the dimensions of the fight - and the need for grassroots action - we won't prevail.

Economic crisis: a teachable moment

This year presents opportunities - "teachable moments" - because Americans are paying attention, with economic instability so prevalent, right outside everyone's door.

The debate over a stimulus bill reveals a festering perennial issue: What is, or should be, the role of government in our economy? Is there a responsibility to promote full employment and community improvement? Or is that left totally to the private marketplace?

And to whom are lawmakers and public officials accountable when they decide these key bread and butter issues? Are we going to have government of, by, and for the people? - or another Gilded Age, governed by a corporate plutocracy, with widespread poverty?

Of course, this perennial struggle over who controls government is not new. Those with the gold have often made the rules - usually to their benefit.

But now, the very role of government and the public sector is openly a part of the debate - a central issue, brought forward by economic downturn and argument over how to fix it. Will government command more "trickle down"? Bailouts for banks? What about Main Street? In a manner, these debates are a part of the struggle to retain democracy. Justice Brandeis foretold it.

Economic stimulus isn't the only emerging debate where financial muscle will surface. Next is regulation of banks and Wall Street, health care, environmental protection, rights of workers to organize. Special interests and corporate boardrooms won't be silent in these fights. Instead, lobbyists will stage a full court press, empowered with bags of campaign cash.

As this occurs, it will become even more obvious that serious reform of campaign laws is needed, to preserve the people's voice. Let's be ready, with answers, with coalition allies, and with an organized movement for change.

Debunking myths: Issues in debate over stimulus bill

In the discussion of Obama's stimulus plan, some comments beg for response. For example, a few lawmakers say we're "buying things we don't need, with money we don't have."

Wrong! - on both counts.

Need? Across America is crumbling infrastructure - bridges failing, roads and schools needing repair and upgrade. We have need of homes for the homeless, new more efficient energy grids, better-trained teachers to educate our youth, an expansion of health care services to the uninsured, and more.

Money we don't have? These troglodytes would have us think money is only ink on paper. Jimmy Stewart reminds us, in It's A Wonderful Life: the real resource is the productive capacity of our people. With communities in need, what sense is it to have workers laid off and factories closed? - while Wall Street chieftains invest in financial Ponzi schemes and take multi-million dollar bonuses.

1950's: High taxes and full employment

Let's remember. For four decades until 1982, the tax rate on the wealthiest taxpayers was over 70% - even 91% from 1951-1963. Budgets were balanced and workers were employed, expanding science and education, building the interstate highway system - improving the quality of life for all, for generations to come. Everyone who wanted a job could find one; the middle class grew; and wealth was distributed more evenly across the land.

That is, until the advent of "trickle-down" theory. When top tax rates were drastically lowered in the 1980's, concentration of wealth began to grow, as investors profited handsomely from the wealth they retained. In fact, the richest Americans' share of national income is now setting postwar records: The wealthiest one percent took in over 20 percent of all income in 2005, according to IRS data.

National columnist Bob Herbert reminds us: "Time and again an economic boom has followed a period of sustained infrastructure investment. Think of the building of the Erie Canal, which connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. Think of the rural electrification program, the interstate highway system, the creation of the Internet."

Generational theft? - or building for the future

Of the stimulus bill, some detractors say it's "generational theft" - robbing future generations by passing along huge deficits to future taxpayers.

They are wrong, spreading misinformation for political purposes, perhaps covering a desire to erode the public sector, clearing the way for private gain. If deficits were such a concern, why didn't they slow Pentagon spending and contracts to favored clients in the past eight years?

In fact, theft is occurring - but not what they describe. Instead it's bailouts for corporate failure, Wall Street Ponzi schemes, and multi-million dollar bonuses - all of which transfer wealth from hard-working Americans to the super-rich. Where did the 401k retirement money go? - to rich commissions to Wall Street traders, and bonuses for bosses.

Actually, the real theft from future generations would be if we allow unemployment to continue or to worsen - if we fail to put millions of laid-off workers to work, repairing roads and schools, improving public transit, and educating our youth - so that families have paychecks, and future generations have a more livable world.

Here's an analogy: If you own a house and fail to maintain it, in a sense you are "stealing" from your kids or your heirs. But if you borrow from your kids' college fund to build a house on an empty lot which they will own, you've improved their future - and their ability to finance their college education. That's not "generational theft" - instead, it's wise concern for the future.

Fighting for democracy: What to do?

We are confronted with some obvious realities: Campaigns are increasingly expensive. Even if unnecessary, it probably won't change. Today's campaigns consist of Madison Avenue-type persuasion linked to micro-targeting of voters. The consultants and the media buys are expensive.

And under the current system, serious candidates are stuck dialing for dollars. The cost of a winning U.S. Senate seat is now well over $7 million. That's almost twenty-thousand dollars per day! What time does a lawmaker have left - to connect with constituents and make laws? Lastly, well-heeled interests are only too happy to finance these campaigns - and gain access and influence in exchange. Money flows in; political favors flow out.

If Brandeis is prescient - that we can't have both: democracy, and wealth concentrated in the hands of a few - what is to be done in our time?

Trust-buster President Theodore Roosevelt called for public financing of campaigns (in his 1907 State of the Union address) - recognizing as he did the corrosive influence of wealth on the nation's democracy.

Actually, we need a fight to preserve the promise of democracy itself. But with campaigns becoming ever more expensive, without campaign finance reform, we're unlikely to achieve government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Indeed, public financing of campaigns - changing the source of campaign cash - is an essential reform, so that elected lawmakers are accountable to constituents instead of well-heeled financiers.

Economic policy might then benefit Main Street instead of Wall Street - hopefully with jobs for everyone who wants to work, and the satisfaction that we're building a future we can proudly leave to our children.

And if the commonwealth created by a fully-employed America benefits Main Street households instead of only the the captains of finance - you might say "de-concentration of wealth" - we'll welcome that as "opportunity realized." And we'll think, "Hey, maybe Justice Brandeis was right!"

~ Craig Salins

Salins is Executive Director of Washington Public Campaigns, working for public financing of campaigns at every level. www.washclean.org

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