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Is That a Politician in Your Pocket: Washington on $2 Million a Day

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If you want to read a book about how money and politics affects your daily life, this is the one. Everyone knows that political fundraising is ever on the rise; in both major parties, the money just keeps growing. But it's more than a race to amass the millions it takes to win office, it's an endless cycle where the stakes affect every significant matter of public policy today. This book shows how our food is less safe to eat, how the environment is more polluted, and how we all pay more taxes, thanks to the influence of campaign contributors. Buy it, read it, pass it on. In the middle of a record dollar-raising presidential election, it is more important than ever to keep the drumbeat rolling for meaningful campaign finance reform.

After reading this book you'll want to shout from your window, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" I've always known money drives policy in Washington, but this book makes it so crystal clear in a quick-read and fun-graphics way! Also, there is no doubt Campaign Finance reform must be an issue for the November elections - it's the only way 99% of us that don't have access to politicians through money can be heard!

... and ready to Take Back America. It chronicles compelling examples of Congress and Bush putting the special interests' agenda before what is right for the people. It bypasses the sometimes arcane process of political fundraising straight to where the rubber meets the road: the making of government policies that affect our daily lives. Buy it. Read it, but have Maalox ready, it could turn your stomach. And get active in stopping the wholesale auction of public policy to those who can afford to bid the highest.

The authors spend 99% of the book detailing abuses in the current system, but spend little time going into details on the proposed solution (Public Financing of Campaigns). They seem to feel uncritically that having the government take over the financing of campaigns will eliminate all abuses. It will certain eliminate many of the abuses they have documented, maybe all of them, but they do us all a disservice by blandly assuming that there won't be serious problems with the current proposals for public financing as well.

For example, in the state of Arizona, there has already passed a law for the public financing of campaigns, and it has led to some serious AND PREDICTABLE abuses. For instance it only takes 220 $5 donations to qualify as a candidate for the state legislature, and to receive $14,000 in public campaign funding for the primary election. Yes that is right, all you need is 220 donations of $5 each. And the average legislative district in Arizona has about 200,000 people. That means that someone qualifies for public funding after they have gathered the casual support of only about .2% of the general electorate!!!! So naturally, the ballot for the primaries are crowded with fringe candidates, crazies, and people whose only interest in running was TO GET THE FREE CAMPAIGN MONEY. How are we better off by being given such a confusing list of poorly qualified candidates to choose from? The good people are lost in the noise.

Years from now we'll look back in wonder about how politicians in 2006 could take money, gifts, and free vacations from lobbyists and corporations with business before congress. In any other country they'd call these actions bribery and payola. In America we call it freedom of speech. These people should be thrown in jail, not re-elected.

This is an absolute must-read if you care about the future of your country. The author's solution is public financing of campaigns at a cost of $5 to $10 per taxpayer. That'd be a bargain at a hundred times the price.

Sifry and Watzman in their book, Is That A Politician In Your Pocket, argue that the campaign finance system benefits a privileged few at the expense of the average citizen. They claim that wealthy special interests buy favors from Congress and the White House using campaign contributions. The authors make their case that corporations and wealthy individuals benefit from legislation passed in Washington by the way that campaigns are financed and by how they influence the election process. The authors also bring transparency to the significant amount of time politicians must spend on fund raising rather than on running the government. The authors' intent is to identify a very real problem in the American political process and provide ammunition to support campaign finance reform.

Sifry and Watzman support their position using a substantial amount of research and data from the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). The Center for Responsive Politics is a non-partisan, non-profit research group based in Washington that tracks money in politics, and its effect on elections and public policy. The authors present a number of case studies on issues such as drug policy, food safety, the environment, public safety, and tax fairness to support their claim that large dollar contributions to political campaigns influence politicians in favor of special interests. Data reported by the CRP is a credible source of information to support the author's claims.

The book clearly adds fuel to the ongoing debate about campaign finance reform and Congressional ethics. Critics of the current campaign finance system claim that the amount of money pouring into elections is having a self-serving or even corrupt affect on politics. The book supports these critics and provides examples that can be used to argue their case. However, politicians need money to run political campaigns. If they do not get it from the current system, then how will campaigns be financed in a fair and unbiased manner? As long as politicians regulate business, then business should have an opportunity to influence politicians. Sifry and Watzman do not consider such opposing viewpoints in their book.

There are several other areas where the authors' approach in developing their arguments can be criticized. First, the causal relationship that they develop between campaign contributions and political influence should be questioned. Do campaign contributions influence politicians or do politicians with a particular bias attract campaign contributions? The second criticism of the authors' work is that it does not offer a balanced perspective on the issue. It is clearly a one-sided viewpoint on campaign finance issues and as such, affects the authors' credibility. The final criticism is that the authors only offer one solution to the problem, that being clean money elections. They do not offer viewpoints on possible issues with clean money elections as a solution. For example, who is to say which politicians get public money and how much?

The impact of Sifry and Watzman's book will depend on the reader's political bias. An audience in favor of campaign finance reform and one that is distrustful of politicians will embrace the book and the evidence provided within it. Members of the Democratic Party may find the book useful because of how it appears to point a big finger at the motives of the Republican Party. Members of the Republican Party will likely find the book biased and attack the credibility of its claims and arguments. If nothing else, the book provides good, controversial material that should serve as a point of dialogue on the issue of corporate influence on the political process.

The entire book is basically bashing Bush on ways that he obtained fortune through politics. All evidince in the book is subjective. Sifry is a hardcore liberal, and feels that we need to get Bush out of the White House; so if you feel the same way, read this book and Sifry will brainwash you into hating Bush more than you already do.