A Catalog of Disappointments

Today, the Supreme Court ruled that combined limits on the spending of individuals regarding political donations was not constitutional.

The ruling stated that the current limits - Approximately $40,000 - on campaigns were in violation of the first amendment. Of course, the court did not touch limits on individual races, or political action committees. Therefor, you are limited in how much you can spend per race - But you can purchase into as many races as possible.

So, in theory, this sort of makes sense. It does seem arbitrary to try and limit how many races someone can contribute to, doesn't it?

But let's not kid ourselves - What portion of the population can actually, personally, spare twice the amount of money that a family of four at the poverty line makes, in a year, to donate to political candidates and organizations?

Honestly? Very few.

The role of money in politics in the united states is, frankly, abhorrent. Our supreme court, over the last few years, has consistently expressed the opinion that monetary donations, and the use of money to purchase media to espouse  a viewpoint, is in fact, constitutionally protected speech.





Today, Paul Ryan proposed a new budget. It would cut $5 Trillion dollars from the federal budget over the next 10 years, and lower the social safety net to the lowest funding levels in history. The proposed goal here is to bring federal spending into line with federal revenue.

The fallacy of course, is to believe that the current level of revenue, in a depressed economy with very near double-digit real unemployment, is somehow a reasonable baseline expectation for the united states.

it somehow ignores how many peopel are dependent on the social safety net, and what the removal of it would do to the economy as a whole.

It completely ignores the role of government spending on the churning motion of our economy. Perhaps the least sane of all, it continues to espouse the belief that the true way to stimulate the economy is to give the very wealthy additional tax breaks - The same very wealthy who, regardless of their income levels, are taxed at a meager 15% for capital gains, and who, more than anyone else in the country, are incentive, and capable of buying the expertise  necessary, to remove their wealth from the scrutiny of any tax codes.

When the cold calculus comes out and you believe that giving a tax break to the ultra-wealthy is a winning proposition because they need to be coddled before they will bring the fruits of their labors back into the country, perhaps something is wrong. When you believe that the most needy in the country are somehow all  flawed - When you claim that the 1 in 7 individuals in this country who now rely on food stamps all somehow posses the same moral failing, rather than acknowledging that the system has failed them, you may, in fact, be wrong.


What the enormous pro-business, pro-rich,  anti-democracy machinery at work in American Politics (and, unfortunately, mostly in the Republican wing of it,)  will one day realize is that the inherent, unjust approach of allowing those with wealth and influence to buy politically expedient outcomes is unsustainable. When a rising tide lifts all boats and your wealth spreads to others, and the lowest in society are given a safety net to prevent their falls from becoming catastrophic, to offer them a chance to regain their footing, then people will support your ability to use your position, luck, and perhaps even talents and personal drive to become fabulously wealthy.

However, we currently live in a world where only those at the top are benefiting. We are looking back at thirty long years of increased productivity, and stagnant wages. We're seeing an economy which was dashed on the rocks by so-called 'Fiscal Creativity', a society which stood up and, perhaps at beneficial rates, propped up those businesses - Only for representatives from them, and those taking their orders, to turn and demand even more concessions, even fewer rules, and even less for those at the bottom.

My generation is starting to figure out that much of the platitudes and pander we hear about the American Dream are no longer true for us. We're paying more and more money to become more and more educated to work for less and less of a share of the production we give to industries. We are being jaded out of caring.

Is it any wonder we are losing faith in institutions? We're watching as we have an entire political party that is focused on tearing down anything that even appears to work, to make some philosophical point, and making as much money as fucking humanly possible while doing it. And we're watching them succeed, because so many of us are tuning out, because people older than us have warped our perception of reality to make us think we can't do anything about it.

We can and we will. Because right now, we're struggling. we're dealing with the fact that we are the first generation, for whom Things Are Not Better. We are watching as people lie to us, and then expect us to fix everything down the road. That they are allowed to profit, and become powerful, from unsustainable systems, economically, environmentally, and politically, that will leave blasted landscapes of opportunity ahead of us, and that somehow that is okay.

It. Is. Not.