If you were ever impressed by the $250,000,000.00 Mitt Romney is purported to be worth think about this: It is entirely possible that come December, after the tallies are taken, the Republicans – in less than one year – will have gambled EIGHT TO TEN TIMES that amount to put him in the White House.
Donald Trump (you know – the guy who turned bankruptcy into a lucrative business back in the 80′s) has created his very own Super PAC, seeding it with $10 million in the hope he will help Romney raise over $2 billion.
Personally, I think giving The Donald a Super PAC is like giving a bottle of vodka to a drunk – but that’s just me.
And this is only one facet of Republican fundraising. It’s estimated the total amounts raised by November will have reached between $250 million and $3 billion, (including the primaries). That’s insane!
I don’t recall where but sometime in the last 10 years I read a report that made the claim: the entire world population could be fed on $18 million. I can’t remember if this was meant for a day, a month or a year, but I do remember feeling it was a very conservative amount, considering. (Googling this now got me nowhere, sadly.)
Then that horrid crash in the stock market happened where it was reported that Bill Gates had lost $18 million in one day and I thought – wow – he could have fed the world with that same amount and been a hero!
The Republican campaign coffers this year are literally engorged with cash and I can’t help wonder why this same enthusiasm isn’t given to feeding the world, instead.Think of the roads that could be fixed or shelters built – children saved by such impressive donations.
Think of the good that would come from that campaign money being fed back into the very government the Republicans are in such a frenzy to ‘restore’… more veterans could keep their benefits maybe. Or more hospitals could remain open.
I mean really, how can ONE PERSON so adamantly refuse to let their tax money go to paying for homeless shelters and school improvements – but throw hundreds of dollars into a Super PAC that has no guarantee the money won’t just end up in some fat cat’s pockets????
A whole lot of people could enjoy real benefits from the obscene amounts of campaign funds collected by the Republicans this year. Too bad they’re going to just piss it away instead…
May 31, 2012 at 7:01 am
The amount of money spent in the 2008 election was disgusting and this has gotten worse.
May 31, 2012 at 8:45 am
It is obscene. Shame on them.
May 31, 2012 at 8:15 pm
I couldn’t agree more! We now have the elections being bought. Things were bad enough prior to Citizens United but the idiotic decision by the Supreme Court that considers corporations to be people, means that corporations get to buy their very own politician. Why would they be willing to spend these ridiculous amounts of money if they weren’t going to benefit to the extreme? Weren’t these the very same corporations who despite making record profits for the past few years, also crying about how regulations were hurting their businesses and preventing them from hiring? Bullshit!
The one thing that I’ve never understood about the SC decision on CU is that if corporations are people, then they already have rights when it comes to elections. This way, they are getting more rights than the average voter because there are no limits on the money they spend. How can this go on? We really have to see this overturned and change elections to the point where financing is limited to the same amount for each candidate, putting everyone on a level playing field. It’s certainly not a coincidence that the wealthiest candidate won the nomination. How can the average voter ever be represented if this is going to be the case? I’ve never seen a candidate so far removed from the average person as Mitt Romney. He’s absolutely clueless, along with his wife. He’ll never relate to the needs of the average person because he’s never been average nor does he care to understand the problems a middle class person faces. God help us if Romney manages to buy or steal this election. Between the SC Justices he would nominate and the laws that would be overturned, we really won’t recognize our country after 4 years of Romney.