What’s The Difference?

Now that the election is over it is time to first look at what the differences were that separated the two political philosophies.  On the right, the call was a return to the past.  Needless to say, the hope of conservatives, regardless of country or party, is to return to what they perceive as “glory days” when, in their minds, things were better.  Today, we hear a need to literally follow the Constitution.  However, it is important to remind ourselves that the Constitution was written a long time ago, when times were very different than today.  It is also important to remind ourselves that in Constitutional times, the only people who could vote were white, male, land owners.  Women and minorities did not have a voice in government at that time.  A return to those days is not desirable by many of today’s citizens.  It is also important that the authors of the Constitution anticipated that there might be a need to change or update the thinking and provided a means to amend that document which has been done over the years thus allowing all citizens to have a voice in government today.  On the left, the call is to recognize that the needs of yesterday may not be the needs of tomorrow.  As our country matures, grows, and changes due to immigration and population shifts, the needs for government involvement also change.  Laws written to provide for the needs of revolutionary times may not be relevant for the age of computers and space travel.  Hopefully, we will send representatives to local, state, and federal legislatures who have the ability to recognize the need for change and will work to craft legislation to accommodate those needs.

One can also hope that one result of this election is the recognition of the absolute folly of the Citizens United decision.  Claiming that corporations have the same right to political speech as people was a terrible decision with terrible results.  Corporations do not have a right to vote and should not have a right to use corporate funds to influence legislation or elections.  At the very least, corporations should never be allowed to deduct the expenditures made to influence legislation as legitimate business expenses.  Any corporate funds expended for the purpose of legislative or election influence should be reported as such on financial statements and annual reports.  If stockholders do not approve of those expenditures, corporate officers who were responsible for those decisions should suffer the consequences of stockholder/board of directors disapproval.  In any event, any expenditures should come out of after tax revenues rather than before tax revenues and under no circumstances deductible as business expenses.. 

Along the same line, an individual should be limited in the amount he or she can expend to influence legislation or elections.  Soros, Adelson, Fries, Koch, and the other wealthy individuals who virtually have bankrolled the political process should not be permitted to use their wealth to the extent witnessed over the past years.  Each of these individuals is limited to a single vote and, in many cases, ineligible to even vote for many of the recipients of their largess.  Campaign finance laws and laws governing lobbying need to be changed to only permit activities or funding for those candidates one is eligible and registered to vote.  There is no sane reason someone on Wall Street in New York City should be able to donate to or influence the election of a Senator or Congressperson in Massachusetts or Tennessee.