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Originally Posted by DTK
Or an intentional dumbing down. My aunt is a bleeding-heart liberal, but one thing she's been saying for ages is that when budget cuts happen, kids and education (you know, any country's future) are always among the first to get screwed. And she's right.
Unfortunately, I disagree completely. In this country, virtually the only way for a politican/party to generate the kind of money needed to become a real player is to whore yourself out to the huge money interests.
This is especially true after the Citizens United ruling, which allows any person/organization to donate an unlimited amount of money to a candidate's (or any ballot initiative's) Super PAC.
For some perspective: Newt Gingrich's sugar daddy Sheldon Adelson donated $16.5 Million to Gingrich's super PAC. It would take 330,000 mere mortals donating $50 each to equal that amount.
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The citizen's united ruling did do major damage to this countries political process; It may have done damage that could be irreversible.
I still think candidates can raise money for state and local elections on their own. However, like you say, if you start getting up into the big areas you will need big money. You could always argue that this 3rd party would likely draw rich backers just like the other two, but then it likely wouldn't be any better, or really different than the other two so it ends up being a catch 22 kind of situation.
You are correct about how schooling and kids tend to be the first things cut. My buddy is a cop in a small town that just found out the previous administration was basically cooking the books. The city thought it was about $150K in debt when in reality they are $2.5 million in debt. The very first thing they did was fire three cops, cut the fire budget and close a senior center that feeds 75-100 low income seniors every day and provides many services to others. They were also planning on investing in the grade school which is old and in desperate need of repair not to mention new books. That is now not happening.
He was livid because the city hall still has 20 people working for it. At least six of those people were given jobs by the former city administrator because they were his friends. They have no job description and do nothing but busy work. they are useless and serve no purpose, but they cut other vital things before firing them. It is a crazy how some of our leaders think.