I'm going to propose a hypothetical scenario which I would like you to picture.
In this scenario I am a law maker, and I am appearing on a tv show. When I go on the show I hand the reporter a briefcase with tens of thousands of dollars in it. I say:
"Here, I really think you do a great job and a great service for the country. I think you should have this."
Then we continue with the show. I don't ask anything in return, there is no quid pro quo, I just think s/he should have it.
Would such an event be notable? Would people be aware that it happened? Would everyone scream 'bias!' and 'scandal!' at the top of their lungs?
Why should they? I haven't asked for anything in return. No one can point with exacting specificity to incidents of the reporter treating me any different than others.
But we would want to know about exchange, and rightly so.
How much do you think the Bush tax cuts are worth to the big names in the country? Left, right, and middle. Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, Coulter, Brian Williams, Jon Stewart, Letterman, almost any name that we would recognize in the media. Thousands and thousands of dollars at stake for them personally. Sure, they have a ton of money already, but does that matter? Did it matter in my hypothetical scenario? If someone walked into Fox News and handed OReilly a briefcase with $50,000 in it, would our reaction be "big deal, he has millions, this won't affect his opinion"?
So now what if it was a bribe? What if I gave a Senator a briefcase full of cash, but only if they vote a certain way. Would that be news? Would we want to know who was being offered the money and who wasn't? Would it be headlines in the papers, at the top of every news hour?
So what about the lawmakers? The list of millionaires on capital hill is too long for me to list here. What about their friends? Their family? Their political consultants?
Why are bribes wrong?
It seems like a silly question at first. But really, what's the answer? The exchange of money alone doesn't prove anything at all. Yet, if I walk into a Senator's office and hand him or her a bunch of cash, and then walk out, a whole hell of a lot is going to be presumed.
Because money perverts our intentions, it twists and bends our thoughts to the oddest rationalizations.
Have you ever had a decision twisted by the offer of significant money?
A higher paying job far away from the family?
A settlement offer to avoid a law suit?
A request from a charity for you to make a donation?
If you have then you have felt the subtle manipulations that money can bring to our thinking. "With more money we can afford to take more family vacations" - even if you won't have the time
"Those charities keep most of the money for administration anyway" - do you take the time to find ones that don't?
We know that money can overtly or subtly twist the way we think. It's why we work so hard to purge it from our systems of justice and lawmaking. It doesn't require a quid pro quo, it doesn't require a direct exchange. We might not even be fully aware it's happening ourselves. It's why we put so many restrictions on lobbyists gifts, on wining and dining on capital hill. Will a Senator trade a vote for a $1,000 meal? No way. Will a Senator get caught up in the allure of $1,000 meal and have his ear twisted in a unique way by a well funded lobbyist? That we could see happening.
So you know where I'm going. Tax cuts.
The debate about taxes in this country is currently centered around the $250,000 cut-off. You know who makes more than $250,000? Virtually every single person involved in making this decision.
The lawmakers, the lawmakers' friends, the top lobbyists, the big name pundits.
Take the fiscal commission as an example. The Fiscal Commission which was established to create a proposal for deficit reduction had 16 commissioners. 12 elected and four from the private sector.
9 out of the 12 elected officials on that Commission are multimillionaires. The private individuals' finances are not public record (as far as I know), but I'd take a bet that at least three of them are over that $250,000 line in the sand.
What does all of this mean?
It means that all of these people have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars at stake in this decision.
Does this make a difference? I don't know.
Should it be talked about a lot more? Absolutely.
We work so hard to figure out the politics behind these decisions.
"Why would Democrat ___ say/do ____?" And we search for political answers, but none of them quite make sense. Maybe one is kind of close here or there, an idea that could be twisted into a reason to resemble a motivation.
Would we be twisting together these justifications if there were briefcases full of cash in the offices of these officials? Or would we jump to the obvious conclusion, and make them prove otherwise?
In my original hypothetical it didn't matter if the reporter getting the money could be proven to be biased. We would all consider it vitally important to know that s/he received the money and how much it was. Where there is money we assume bias, it's only natural in every part of public discourse. Except tax law?
I want to know exactly how much money the Bush tax cuts mean to each law maker on a personal financial level. I'd like to know it about public talking heads. It should be talked about at every point.
DISCLAIMER: I am not claiming that any politician or reporter is taking a certain course of action for personal financial gain only. I am saying that the personal financial gain their actions bring them is newsworthy. It seems very newsworthy.
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