What we "see" is not what we get.

When you change the way you look at a thing, the thing you look at changes.  Raymond Farrar

What is your gut feeling about taxation?  Do you think more taxation is good and warranted, or do you think less taxation is good and warranted?    

OpenSecrets.org carried a blog entry on July 22, 2013, titled “Internet Sales Tax Fight Moves to House.”  The article refers to the Market Place Fairness Act. 

                       The battle over a proposed Internet sale tax has moved to the House, with interests on both sides pouring money into the campaign coffers of potential allies.  The bill passed the Senate in May, and the fight for votes in the House is focused on tax-leery Republicans; most Democratic lawmakers appear to be behind the measure.  Opponents argue that it’s a new tax, while supporters say it simply compels enforcement of existing local and state sales levies.*

What do you think?  Is it a new tax, or is does it merely compel “enforcement of existing” levies?

Well, it doesn’t really matter what you think! 

 

What matters is who is “pouring money into the campaign coffers of potential allies.”  In this case, the money is from the Political Action Committees (PACs) of the National Retail Federation (NRF), Home Depot, Walmart and Amazon – all supporters of the legislation. 

The article highlighted the contributions to Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Spencer Bachus (R.-Ala.), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law, “which has jurisdiction over the measure.”  Rep. Bachus’ committee is a subcommittee in the House Judiciary Committee.  Contributing to the chairman of those committees is crucial because the chairman controls the legislative action within their committees.  They have the power to advance legislation or block it.

The article goes on to describe another ploy used by the NRF to influence lawmakers:

             Last Wednesday, the National Retail Federation organized a “fly in” – an en masse visit to   Capitol Hill by executives from its member companies – to talk to House Republicans supporting the tax.  In late June, the NRF also announced an inaugural award to members of Congress for being “Heroes of Mainstreet,” specifically for their support of the Internet sales tax legislation.  Of the 24 Republican “heroes” all but two received donations from either the NRF or one of the trade group’s top members.  Home Depot and Walmart were particularly generous with these 22 House Republicans, showering them with a combined $59,500.

Republicans opposed to the legislation received a total of $54,000 from eBay’s PAC.

The “face” of conservative ideology, which the Republican Party owns and actively promotes, is that taxes are bad.  Taxes deprive individuals and businesses of money they could use to invest and help the economy grow.  Taxes are a confiscation of wealth, which allows the government to re-distribute that wealth.  That is what we “see” because that is what the Republican Party leadership wants us to see.  They promote this aspect of conservatism to win elections.

However, what really goes on with our elected officials is entirely self-serving.  As the article points out, a symbiotic relationship exists between politicians and interest groups.  Interest groups like the NRF seek to influence the legislative process, while politicians secure campaign contributions from those same organizations.  And as stated previously, those in leadership, like Goodlatte and Bachus, are especially targeted because committee chairman control legislation in their respective committees. 

On August 8, 2012, USA TODAY carried a report titled, “This Congress could be least productive since 1947.”  The article refers to the 112^th Congress (currently the 113^th Congress is in session).  The article highlighted the fact that, “Just 61 bills have become law to date in 2012 out of 3,914 bills that have been introduced by lawmakers, or less than 2% of all proposed laws, according to a USA TODAY analysis of records since 1947 kept by the U.S. House Clerk's office.”**

The money spent to affect the legislative outcome for the Market Place Fairness Act was $113,500 as of the time of the OpenSecrets article.  For illustration purposes, let’s say $20,000 was spent to influence the legislative action on the 3,914 bills mentioned in USA TODAY article.  That equals a total of $78,280,000 funneled to candidates.  The money moves, but results are not really all that important as evidenced by the fact that only 61 bills became law.

We tend to “see” politics as a battle of party ideologies.  My hope is now you can now change the way you look at politics and can now “see” it differently.

Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”  Our Nation has the problems it does because of our political culture, which operates to maintain the political status quo.  If we don’t change that culture, we will continue to use the same thinking to solve our Nation’s problems that was used when those problems were created: an impossibility.

*Choma, Russ.  “Internet Sales Tax Fight Moves to House.”  July, 22, 2013.  Retrieved from:

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/07/internet-sales-tax-moves-to-h.html

**Davis, Susan.  “This Congress could be the least productive since 1947.”  August 15, 2012.  Retrieved from:

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-08-14/unproductive-congress-not-passing-bills/57060096/1