This from the "Everybody knows ..." department: When it comes to courting lawmakers, corporations are more gold digger than lover, but at least with "the party of the people" back in power -- largely because the 12-year Republican-corporate fling was so unseemly, amoral and instructional -- those corporate come-hither looks will now be met with judicious leariness. Right?
Yeah. Tell us another bedtime story. For the gold-digging gun has sounded and this race looks mighty familiar.
"Campaign finance data reported this week show that this year's top-giving company PACs are shifting course," reports Politico.com. "That contribution shift is particularly pronounced among committee leaders, which offers some clues about how big companies may seek to navigate the new Congress."
Their navigation, however, doesn't go without considerable co-piloting. Freshly installed and hungry Democratic chairmen are more than willing to show the way and pocket the cash. Follow the money? Hell, you can't miss it for stumbling over it.
Here -- again, from Politico -- are just a few of the dispiriting facts to date.
The top Democrats on the 20 most business-related congressional committees hauled in nearly $240,000 from the 35 most active corporate political action committees in the first couple of months of the year. Their Republican counterparts -- the committees' ranking members -- received $182,200 from the same industry committees.
That's an early 32-percent advantage for "the people's party," and sure to grow. Any guess as to how important "the people" are in big business' calculations?
With Democrats looking to rein in defense spending, the three biggest-giving defense contractor PACs this year have given to Democratic chairmen of the committees with military spending oversight, but not to the committees' Republican ranking members.
I wasn't aware that Democrats were looking "to rein in defense spending"; if anything, they long ago joined the chorus of Pentagon boosters, generally out of fear of demagogic assaults and especially since the opposition party has gutted the Army, Marines Corps and National Guard. Democrats will heftily refinance the armed forces -- plus some -- so that in 10 years another Republican administration can gut it again. And so it goes, particularly when you're getting all the defense-contractor goodies.
Democrats are also reexamining corporate tax structures, which has business nervous. The chairmen of committees handling those issues -- House Ways and Means and Senate Finance -- have pulled in nearly $110,000 from the top corporate PACs, while the top Republicans have tallied $51,500.
I doubt they're really all that nervous. Not any longer.
Many Democrats pledged to refocus energy policy on alternative fuels, and the five most active energy company PACs ... have lavished contributions on one of the key Democratic leaders on the issue, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.). He raked in $12,500 from the PACs for Exelon, American Electric Power, Florida Power & Light and Duke Energy, while his ranking member, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), received nothing.
John Dingell has been in the House since 1955. He last won reelection with 87.91 percent of the vote. Is there some threat to his seat that only $12,500 from the likes of Florida Power and Light will forestall?
I have no problem with Aunt Bea throwing a few bucks her congressional candidate's way. But when multiple corporations of like self-interests can each toss $10,000 onto the table, then you have an electoral system of barely veiled wholesale graft that screams for mandatory public financing.
Rather than spending countless hours "hauling in," "pulling in" and being "lavished on," how about Congressional Democrats devoting some serious time to ending the cyclical madness?