On The Morning Joe, Richard Haass offered his proposal to resolve the conflicts in states like Wisconsin and Ohio, where Republican governors are attempting to dismantle organized labor by stripping workers’ rights to bargain collectively for the purported reason of balancing the budget. Haass, the president of the Council of Foreign Relations, agreed that collective bargaining is a right of workers that shouldn’t be rescinded, and went on to say that elected officials should “make a deal” with unions who represent public employees: “You can’t expect people to collectively bargain fairly with the people they are contributing to, why not make a deal with the public-sector unions,” said Haas, “going forward you can collectively bargain, but in exchange, you can’t contribute to the people you’re bargaining with. Essentially have a no political contribution to state officials, and that’s the deal.” According to Haass, this would prevent unions from “tilt[ing] the political playing field.”
If Haass believes that the unions which represent nurses, teachers, and police officers should be barred from influencing elections, will Haass and his likeminded commentators formulate a similar proposal for corporations?
As a result of Citizens United, corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money from their general treasuries to fund political groups to bolster or attack candidates for office. And in states like Wisconsin, corporations can make direct contributions to the candidates, just as Koch Industries gave the maximum $43,000 to Scott Walker’s campaign.
Corporations helped finance the Republican campaign apparatus, and now their influence in lawmaking is mushrooming. “Citizens United alone did not win the 2010 elections for Republicans,” writes People For president Michael Keegan, “But the money it let loose helped ensure that those swept to power by widespread voter dissatisfaction would be eager to pander to the interests of corporations and the wealthy, and to demonize those who oppose them,” like labor unions.
Haass may claim that it’s unfair for labor unions to negotiate with officials they backed in the election, but the far more significant and serious question is: should corporations be allowed to finance the campaigns of the politicians who write their taxes, implement their regulations, and in many cases subsidize their coffers?
Just today, the “free-market” Republicans voted unanimously to maintain the tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies that go to big oil companies.
As the Republican majority in the House of Representatives time and again confirms, corporate-backed politicians almost always side with corporate interests in government.