Nation on the Take

Money and politics have become synonymous. Politicians spend that majority of their time raising money, (which they claim they hate) while the cost of campaigns escalates and more money is needed and more money needs to be raised. And where does that money come from….not usually from small contributions, but from large and vested special interests.

The result is a system that is inherently corrupt and tilted toward big money. Even when it is practiced by the most sincere and dedicated elected officials.

We all seem to know this...what we don't see as clearly is the way in which this simple, fundamental and relatively recent development is responsible for so much that’s wrong with our democracy. Our wealth gap, political gridlock, inaction on some of our most pressing environmental issues,

For focusing on this core idea, Bernie Sanders has been accused of being a single issues candidate. But no matter where you stand on Sanders, it’s increasingly clear that this single issues is the foundational idea underlying the paralysis of 21st century America.

This is the issue that Wendell Potter and Nick Penniman take head on in Nation on the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy and What We Can Do About It

My conversation with Potter and Penniman:

Do we need a constitutional amendment to take money out of politics?

Election day 2014 is fast approaching. At the end of the process, we will have spent over three hundred million dollars to decide if Mitch McConnell or Harry Reid will have a two vote margin.

While there are many social, political and psychological reasons for our current state of political gridlock and polarization, money is certainly at the core.

The next Presidential election could well cost over one and a quarter billion dollars. It costs ten million, at the very least, to become a US Senator and even House races cost millions.

We’ve long talked about the corrosive effect of money in politics, and Citizens United has only reinforced that. But both sides are raising and spending the money with equal alacrity, and the public shows no signs of being fed up enough, to do anything about it.

If it continues, what does it really mean for democracy has we have known it, what kind of government will it give us, and will there ever come a tipping point for an angry and disaffected public? Those are some of the question that Tim Kuhner raises in Capitalism v. Democracy: Money in Politics and the Free Market Constitution.

My conversation with Tim Kuhner: