American political campaigns are expensive, and the price tag is growing exponentially. With so many more mediums for advertisements, aspiring representatives need to hire an extensive professional campaign staff and pay exorbitant prices for TV, Internet, newspaper, magazine, and even social networking ads (we’ve all seen “‘Like’ Mitt Romney!” or “‘Like’ Obama Truth” show up on the right of our Facebook pages). For congressmen, price ranges are in the millions; for Barack Obama, the price for his 2012 election is estimated to break $1 billion for the first time in history ( see this link for more information ). And more often than not, thanks to the power of successful advertising, the person with the most campaign money wins the election.

Financing such campaigns has led politicians to exhibit behavior that would make their predecessors cringe. Congressmen dedicate an estimated 30% of their time to fundraising efforts, traveling to and from various locations and attending $5,000 a plate dinners. While I cannot speak for how this behavior corrupts their decision-making (i.e. through working only towards the best interests of the highest donors), wasting a third of their time on elections is certainly distracting and detrimental to their jobs.

So what can we do to solve this issue? I’ve heard many interesting theories on how we can create campaign finance reform through changing the system. The most popular one, which has seen legislative implementation, involves complete transparency of funds and limitations on personal contributions. And as a matter of fact, all campaign contributions for all representatives are accessible to the public. The Federal Election Commission, for example, puts all federal election contributions online for anyone to see. However, seeing how much Person X or Company Y donated does not provide a clear picture of who has the greatest monetary influence. PACs and other groups are exempt from such federal regulation and can incur unlimited amounts of money.

Another theory proposed involves the opposite: complete anonymity. Anyone can donate as much money as they want to a candidate, but the donor must remain anonymous. Ideally, this theory would allow people to support the candidate they believe in, and candidates wouldn’t be inclined to suck up to the largest donors. But the problem with this idea is that there would be so little incentive to donate. Furthermore, implementation would be impossible; word would get out to politicians somehow about who donated how much, and the result would be the exact same situation.

One of the most unique theories I have heard involved the idea of a public election fund. Essentially, all voters would be taxed a small amount, creating a fund for politicians to campaign with. But again, there would be little incentive to donate, and politicians, lobbyists, and interest groups would find ways to create lateral campaign organizations exempt from federal regulation, much like today’s PACs.

I honestly doubt any change at the system level will be successful. Corruption always weeds its way into politics, and there is no such thing as a perfect system. However, I do think that we can change the way elections are run if we become a more educated electorate. We need to do our research and choose our candidates on the basis of policy ideas and merit. Too often do we get caught up in party loyalty or subjective decisions (i.e. “Romney just…rubs me the wrong way. He seems like such a crook.” Why? Is he really? What has he done? Do you even know?). We need to look beyond the superficial and be smart about our ability to vote.

The term lobbying originated in the nineteenth century. Crowds of people would gather before and after parliamentary sessions in, you guessed it, the lobby. And each group would try to further their own cause. It was probably the most direct form of democracy; citizens would go up to their lawmakers, offer opinions, and make demands.

Unsurprisingly, many things have changed in the past 300 years, and the term “lobbying” has become associated directly with money, corruption, and influence. When people think of lobbyists, they picture rich men in business suits taking their “clients” (aka politicians) on expensive trips to island resorts, casinos, country clubs, and golf courses. K Street, like Wall Street, is synonymous with greed and the ability of powerful people to buy their way out of anything. And I would argue that this is in fact the case for the few exceptions that, in one way or another, erupted into highly-publicized scandals. So it really is no surprise that the American public is so distrustful of lobbying. However, my trip to Washington D.C. last weekend for a Distinguished Faculty Event (graciously arranged by Dr. Stoller) and the conversations I had with “K Street” lobbyists painted a very different picture.

On Friday for lunch, I met with members of the AIA consulting firm, which represents non-medial insurance companies (i.e. worker’s compensation, property damage, etc.). And their job description is nothing like what I’ve written above. They meet with various insurance companies, bureaucratic institutions, and associated industry professionals and determine what kind of policies would be most useful to them. Afterwards, the lobbyists meet with politicians, explain the need for their clients’ policies, and provide Congressmen with the necessary literature that can be inserted into a bill. Similarly, any time Congress creates legislation that will negatively impacts these companies, lobbyists will once more bring everyone together, come up with a solid argument against the legislation, and attempt to kill the harmful section of a bill. Because more often than not, politicians unguided by lobbyists will create laws that only serve as a regulatory difficulty for companies, without any benefit to the consumer.

Friday afternoon we also met with members of the Ridge Consulting Group, which takes on a variety of clients and lobbies for them in Pennsylvania and at the federal level. Again, the lobbyists we talked to served as a link between politicians and and various small businesses, universities, research institutes, etc. And Ridge proudly admitted their successes in securing university grants, research grants, and a variety of other nurturing policies for their clients, essentially the “pork” spending we hear such an uproar about. Because the fact of the matter is, not all pork is bad pork; a lot of it is put to good use by the institutions lucky enough to obtain it. And if politicians see that their pork is being put to good use, then they will continue to grant it.

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to see the other side of the process. We met with two recent Penn State graduates who currently work for the office of Senator Bob Casey as aides. Their job is to listen to the various pitches of lobbyists, decide which interest their senator would most likely support, and compose policy legislation, per the lobbyists’ recommendations, which will be inserted into the bills being debated. Of course, this is not to say that the senator does not meet with lobbyists and special interest groups; however, Congressmen need to spend a lot of their time either in committee, or communicating with their constituents in their home state. Which is why each Congressman has a large staff to deal with every petty issue their job entails, including meeting with the majority of lobbyists.

So how does this process fit in with concepts of democracy? Is it really so twisted? Think about it: A group of people in the form of a company, institution, or interest group wish to see a policy either enacted or prohibited. They go to a lobbying firm who specializes in the techniques that will allow their voice to be heard, and the lobbyists go to either the staff of Congressmen or the politicians themselves and pitch their ideas. The result is a collaboration that leads to favorable legislation.

Unfortunately, there are a few glaring holes to this system. First off, lobbyists are expensive, and increasingly so on the basis of effectiveness; consequently, the richest interest groups will always hire the best professionals and gain the most from the system. Furthermore, not every group of people has a formal organization or the means to have their voice heard. You will never find an interest group for the homeless, or for undergraduate students demanding lower tuition costs. It is therefore up to the politicians themselves to keep other constituents in mind over the babble from lobbyists representing Heinz and Goldman&Sachs.

But this is how our system has evolved. Things are a lot more complicated today than they were 300 years ago, when lobbying consisted of Farmer Joe and Blacksmith Bob asking for better access to irrigation and lower tariffs on metal imports. Politicians are dependent on the expertise of lobbyists and the groups they represent. And who can blame them?

Despite the obscene word count of my last foreign policy post, I am nowhere near finished. But I will try to be more concise this time.

I did a lot of explaining about why the U.S. should get involved, but I did not fully explain when. So without further ado, here is my guide to U.S. Foreign involvement.

1. Regarding Humanitarian Aid: During the Stewart v. O’Reilly debate, a viewer asked why we should continue to donate aid to other countries, and if anything should happen to our country, who would step up and donate to us in a similar manner. While I cannot answer the second part of that question (perhaps the EU if they were on solid economic footing?), I believe the answer to the first is fairly simple. We should definitely continue and even expand our donations to third world countries, since their economic growth can end up benefiting us in the end. And furthermore, if we don’t, who will? Poor nonprofits? The politically tied UN? Of course, the manner of U.S. donations needs to change. We often settle for food drops and medicine donations, but this effectively does nothing but provide a “band-aid” solution, a short-term response that, if anything, makes poor communities dependent on foreign aid. What we need to concentrate our efforts on is sustainable development, or in effect, making third-world communities literate and teaching them proper agricultural and business techniques. This will ultimately allow them to sustain themselves and slowly develop to better standards of living, a long term solution that does not create dependency.
2. Spreading Democracy: Our political system is great. We can honestly boast of our political freedoms, even taking into account the multitude of blemishes caused by inevitable corruption. So should we intervene in autocratic states and spread the democratic word? The answer is, logically, conditional. If a state has a fledgling democracy struggling to take flight (such as Lybia at the current moment), I think the U.S. should come in and help out. New democracies are very fragile if the state is economically weak, and the support of a nation like ours will not only be helpful, but also welcome and beneficial to all. In comparison, countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, though many oppressed citizens might welcome the end of autocracy, are not worth meddling with, since that would ultimately cause more harm.
3. Protecting Human Rights: This is by far the trickiest bit, since protecting human rights is viewed by the international community as the responsibility of individual states. In other words, China is responsible for protecting the human rights of it’s citizens, and the U.S. for Americans. So what do we do when a country such as Syria decides to blatantly ignore the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and oppress its people? In this case, I believe the U.S. has been pretty solid on foreign policy. We start with economic sanctions, effectively the modern equivalent of “siege warfare,” and ask our western buddies to join in as well. But what about military intervention? I believe this should be reserved for only extreme cases, specifically genocide, such as Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Rwanda a little later, and Sudan most recently. Though I haven’t studied Syria in as much detail as the subject deserves, I do believe that country’s government is crossing the line, and we should be a lot more aggressive in liberating its people. North Korea is one of the few exceptions to this rule because it is not considered a rational actor.

I meant this week’s post to be a continuation of last week’s (aka Foreign Policy Part 2), but in light of recent events, I’ve decided to write a reaction to Wednesday’s presidential debate.

Many say that Romney won. Others say Obama. I say the country as a whole, and the integrity of its political system, lost.

I confess, I did not catch the debate live, but I did watch segments of it online and read the transcript. And what infuriates me about the whole ordeal is the emphasis on competition and ideology. Rather than provide constructive answers to the leading questions, detailed answers with comprehensive plans, Mitt Romney affirmed that he is a Republican who disagrees with the President, and President Obama affirmed that he is a Democrat who disagrees with Romney.

In my opinion, the mass media is at the root of the problem. As awesome as it is to be able to see such a historic debate, their emphasis on competition and their presentation of politics as another sporting event, has seriously detracted from the way we select our leaders. I managed to catch a CNN breakdown of the debate, and it consisted largely of analyzing post-debate polls, including the reactions of a “test group” which rated the “highs” and “lows” of the debate.

The polls? Is that what you’re going to analyse? Two men took the stage that night, and one of them will determine the country’s path for the next four years. But apparently, tracking the race to the White House is more important than stopping to look at what the concrete results of that race will be.

This “race” mindset also caused half of each candidate’s answer, if not all, to be dedicated to attacking the other candidate, essentially wasting time they could have spent going into more detail about their own ideas.

As for ideology, I am so sick of hearing it. I understand its importance; ideology is the root behind your ideas, in a sense, a sort of political moral compass. But beyond that, and taking precedence, is CIRCUMSTANCE. So while I understand that Romney truly believes in a small government, there is a deficit we have to worry about, and cutting taxes will never in a million years lower the budget. And while I understand that Obama truly believes in a big government, there is so much extraneous spending already going on which only benefits a handful of people (i.e. the pharmaceutical companies as a direct result of his “universal” health care law) and needs to be significantly trimmed down.

I could go on for ages complaining about the state of this country’s politics. But the conclusion remains the same: I am severely disappointed  Presidential debates have significantly declined in quality, as a direct result of the exact medium which helped them be accessible to the entire nation.