I've got a Politician in my Pocket!

I probably should have saved this post for later, but I can always repost it when more data comes in.

Have you ever wondered why senators and congressmen and yes, even the president continuously support legislation that benefits large corporations rather than the american people? I have. And I explored.

My curiosity led me to followthemoney.org which is a website run by a non-profit organization dedicated to transparency pertaining to campaign donations made by various industries.

Below is a chart of a collective of pharmaceutical companies' donations to various state level political party committees. As is evident, donations heavily favored whichever party happened to be the current majority in american government.

Would it surprise anyone to learn that Senator Joe Lieberman, recently famous for promising to lead the filibuster of healthcare reform, has accepted millions of dollars of campaign contributions from his state's many healthcare companies?

The system is as follows:

the american consumer spends hard-earned money on products, be they necessities or luxuries; the corporation receives the money from that purchase and millions of others;

the corporation donates that money to politicians' campaigns;

the politicians have to vote in favor of legislation that benefits the corporation or else they won't receive campaign money anymore;

only politicians who vote in favor of corporations get elected.

This is outrageous. Corporation donations coupled with legislation that restricts campaign donation to third-party candidates make it seem like the american people don't even have a choice any more.

What can we do? Send a message to congress by completely voting out incumbents. Supports the Public Option healthcare bill that would benefit the american people rather than big Pharma, and actually cause healthcare companies to lower premiums by offering competitive care at much lower rates. But the best thing we can do is simply research and speak out against corporation donation to politicians, and get rid of those politicians who put personal gain ahead of the prosperity of the American public.