Money Talks, And Politicians Listen!

Who's Running Ruining Our Country?

The Love Affair Between Corporations And Congress. Total campaign contributions for the 2008 Congressional elections totaled $2.64 billion. There are at least a dozen countries whose GDP is lower than this amount. That's almost $5 million for each of the 535 seats in the two houses of Congress. Of this amount, 74% came from Business, 8% from Ideological Groups, 3% from Labor, and the remaining 15% from Other sources. Business alone contributed almost $3.7 million for each Congressional seat. And Congress has been faithful in providing corporations with exemption, incentives, special deductions, and other such rewards.

Bigger Is Better When It Comes To Donations. Which corporations are the biggest contributors to Capitol Hill? Here is a list of the top 75 corporate contributors of campaign cash from 1989 to 2010. (Source: The Top 75 Corporate Sponsors) How many of these names do you recognize? Do they sound like the kinds of companies you would like to have running your country – for their benefit?

1 AT&T

2 National Association of Realtors

3 Goldman Sachs

4 American Association for Justice

5 Citigroup

6 American Medical Association

7 National Automobile Dealers Association

8 United Parcel Service

9 Altria

10 American Bankers Association

11 National Association of Home Builders

12 National Beer Wholesalers Association

13 Microsoft

14 JPMorgan Chase

15 Time Warner

16 Morgan Stanley

17 Verizon

18 Lockheed Martin

19 General Electric

20 Pfizer

21 FedEx

22 Credit Union National Association

23 Bank of America

24 Ernst & Young

25 Blue Cross/Blue Shield

26 American Dental Association

27 American Hospital Association

28 Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu

29 Pricewaterhouse Coopers

30 UBS

31 Aflac

32 Natl. Assn. of Insurance and Financial Advisors

33 Boeing

34 Union Pacific

35 Merrill Lynch

36 Reynolds American

37 Northrop Grumman

38 American Institute of CPAS

39 BellSouth

40 Credit Suisse

41 Anheuser-Busch

42 National Rural Electric Cooperative Association

43 General Dynamics

44 American Financial Group

45 GlaxoSmithKline

46 Chevron

47 Walt Disney

48 DLA Piper

49 ExxonMobil

50 KPMG

51 MBNA

52 UST

53 Southern Company

54 National Restaurant Association

55 Freddie Mac

56 AIG

57 Koch Industries

58 Prudential Financial

59 MetLife

60 Wal-Mart

61 American Academy of Ophthalmology

62 American Health Care Association

63 Securities Industry and Financial Market Association

64 General Motors

65 CSX

66 Eli Lilly

67 Associated General Contractors

68 Amway/Alticor

69 Archer Daniels Midland

70 American Airlines

71 MCI

72 National Federation of Independent Business

73 American Council of Life Insurers

74 Bristol-Myers Squibb

75 Enron

This looks like a nice slice of the Fortune 500, doesn't it? However, It is more likely to be viewed as a “Most Wanted” list by politicians looking for campaign contributions.

Corporations Lending A Helping Hand. It would be nice to think that these corporations are just being good corporate “citizens” interested in helping their country. However, we all know that they are much more interested in helping themselves, and that is just what they expect Congress to help them do. The corporations know that the politicians whom they helped put into office with their money will watch out for their welfare and best interests. Meanwhile, private citizens who actually put them into office with their votes fail to get the representation that the Constitution provides.   

Coming Up.

	U.S. Congress: Bought And Paid For
	Lobbying And Its Impact On Democracy
	Lobbyists Teach One Day and Get Huge Pension
	Why Is Our Congress So Dysfunctional?