Media and Lobbyists

AnnPT77

Theo166 wrote: »

It's scary that in your mind you compare writing laws, raising taxes and making budgets to flipping burgers at McDonalds.

Most reps are lawyers, they don't need a life term to make better laws, they just need to focus on their constituency.

McDonald's staff do their job with muscle memory while I want legislators to use their brains.

The long term office holders get lazy and listen to the lobbyists instead of doing what's good for their voters.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Theo166 wrote: »

Azdak wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

CSARdiver wrote: »

MoiAussi93 wrote: »

I believe that you can't rely on the media for anything...even to get the basic facts right. Far too many of the stories I read...whether about nutrition, politics, or even an obvious terrorist attack...either leave out certain key pieces of information to lead the reader to an inaccurate conclusion, get basic facts wrong (whether deliberately or just because of sloppiness), or clearly are pushing an agenda and slanting everything to support the reporter's own feelings (when their job is to just give us the facts and let us draw our own conclusions.)

Lobbyists serve a legitimate function, however in the current political system they have far, far too much power. For example, after the financial crisis in 2008 new legislation was passed to regulate the financial industry. A good friend of mine...who works for one of the major investment banks!!!...actually wrote key passages of the legislation that was passed. Congress didn't understand the issues (or perhaps corruption also played a part?), went to the lobbyists for help, and the lobbyists went back to their client...the banks. So the banks wrote the legislation that supposedly holds them in check. The same thing happens in nutrition.

There has been plenty written on all the lobbying that resulted in that food pyramid. The food pyramid that many of us grew up with was really NOT supported by the science at the time. But carbs (breads & cereals) became the base (6-11 servings were recommended in the original version! Against the recommendations of USDA scientists!!!) because of the impact of lobbyists for the wheat and corn industries.

So media and lobbyists have a HUGE impact on what the public in general considers healthy. That is not a good thing considering that these groups are not working for the public, but for specific business interests.

If you really want to be informed, read studies yourself. Draw your own conclusions about what the science actually points toward...don't accept somebody else's conclusion as "fact".

Hear hear! If you've ever been part of a news story or interviewed you know firsthand how media manipulates data to serve an agenda. I don't know if it is possible to remove bias, but it is critical to be aware of it. Government media will bias toward government. Commercial media will bias toward its sponsors. This makes it all the more important to review source data, but few have the time or knowledge to access this.

We could address the root cause through term limits and remove the occupation of professional politician, but the majority will not do this. Only a small minority are politically aware, even fewer are politically active. Those that are are so rooted into binary thinking that they cannot see beyond their personal political doctrine. People have the mindset that while Congress is non-functional, their Congressman is not the problem.

Please: NO to term limits. We implemented them at the state level (in Michigan) and it's been a disaster. The average person doesn't really learn how a complex thing like a state operates well enough to do the job with full competence and insight, within the limited time they can be in office.

Therefore, staffers and lobbyists get more power, because they stick around; the actual legislators don't know enough about the subjects to exercise integrity even if they have some.

On top of that, the limits mean that most legislators are grandstanding during their terms, sponsoring splashy headline-grabbing pandering kinds of things (because they're already running for their next office), while boring but serious business (especially the intellectually complex, difficult to understand parts) goes completely un-addressed.

No, no, no to term limits. It's poison. If you don't like 'em, vote 'em out. If they're competent, let them stay, and give some continuity to the big machine (that isn't unelected civil servants, staffers and lobbyists).

Agree 100%. If you could "throw the bums out" tomorrow, in a year they would just be replaced by more bums.
The "corrupt" politicians that everyone hates came from the same population pool as those who would replace them. They were yesterday's "reformers".

IMO, term limits, like tax freezes, are lazy approaches. Voters have the tools they need to change the government at any time. If they aren't competent to choose the right person now (see Election, 2016), why would they be any more competent to choose candidates more frequently?

There is cause for the saying "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". A regular changing of the guard reduces both motive and means for corruption.

But what happens with term limits is you really, really quickly burn through the people with intelligence, integrity, and willingness to serve, and end up with the Keystone Kops. I guess it's an advantage that often their corruption is so freakin' transparent that a child could see it.

Here in term-limited Michigan, a recent favorite of mine was two married (to others) tea-party-affiliated legislators who had an affair, even sharing an office and staff in the legislature. Then the male half of the team asked his flacks to whisper a rumor that he was gay, an easily-righteously-refuted claim, to cover up this extra-marital affair (no, that idea doesn't make sense to anyone but him). This news was leaked, leading to much amusement and/or chagrin by spectators inside & outside the legislature. Ultimately, both were booted by their colleagues. Last I heard, the female was suing them because she had understood that if she admitted guilt, she'd be censured but not ejected. One or both of them - I forget which - tried to run again (they weren't limited out yet). It didn't go well.

Seriously, when these folks can only serve a couple of terms, they don't need to be bought to be corrupted. They know so little about what's going on that 'friendly' lobbyists can hoodwink them just by providing biased information that they don't have enough experience to vet competently. The lobbyists can also buy staff members (who are serial-monogamous employees over time of different legislators from the same party, and therefore get cozy with the lobbyists). These staffers have sway over the clueless legislators, stack the deck, and can't be voted out.

The other thing we're seeing is family dynasties: Guy runs, limits out, wife runs, limits out, daughter runs, limits out . . . .

You know that experience you have when you go to McDonald's and the whole crew is new, then you order something only just slightly unusual and they fall apart? Our legislature acts a lot like that, on a society-changing scale. Every problem a state faces is way more complicated than a Sausage McMuffin with extra egg, and they face problems across a huge range of subject matters.

Term limits are a disaster.

If you need the guard changed, vote them out.

Whether you like my simple joke-y analogy or not, what you describe is simply not how term limits have played out in practice in Michigan. I'm speaking from observation of actual results. Research bears out my observations.

Michigan voted in term limits in 1992. We've been watching the experiment for a quarter century. It's disastrous.

If you don't believe me, I'll repeat this:

http://michiganradio.org/post/research-term-limits-shows-lobbyists-special-interests-win-while-michiganders-often-lose

Truly, the stuff happening here in the legislature looks more like the Keystone Kops than a knowledge body of educated adults running a state. We'd be more broke than Illinois if our constitution didn't require a balanced budget annually. The roads and other infrastructure are crumbling. The schools are failing. The legislature spends time on doomed legislation like a "Choose Life" license plate, and kicks long-term, ugly, messy, no-good-publicity, complicated issues down the road for the next crop of ill-informed publicity-seeking idiots. It's a mess.