If the twin threats to public pensions continue, African American retirees may lose much of the retirement security they’ve gained over the past half-century.
After getting the First Amendment supremely wrong in Citizens United, the Supreme Court now faces its next money in politics case. In McCutcheon v. FEC, the challengers are attacking a law that says that no one person can contribute over $123,000 directly to federal candidates, parties, and committees—that’s over twice the average American’s income.
The Government By the People Act increases the power of the small contributions that ordinary citizens can afford to give, providing incentives for congressional candidates to reach out to average constituents, not just dial for dollars from wealthy donors.
Our current system of campaign finance reform suppresses the political power of people of color and that lack of political power has had proven, lasting consequences.
For decades, GDP has enjoyed supreme status as the predominant benchmark of our economic and social progress. In reality, GDP obscures or ignores essential aspects of Americans’ economic and social welfare, as well as important social and environmental dimensions of our national welfare and future well-being.
For four decades, the Supreme Court’s flawed approach to money in politics has gutted common-sense protections against the power of special interests and wealthy individuals. This defies our core democratic values.
The dominance of big money in our politics makes it far harder for people of color to exert political power and effectively advocate for their interests as both wealth and power are consolidated by a small, very white, share of the population.
In August 2011, Congress passed a strange piece of legislation intended to bind itself into the future. In spite of persistently high unemployment and an unremarkable deficit-to-GDP ratio, and in spite of public polling that consistently showed that creating jobs was the American public’s top priority, politicians inside the infamous Washington “Beltway” had spent months locked in a debate over ways to cut deficits and balance the federal budget—policies that would not create jobs and by some estimates would put millions out of work.
Connecticut has offered a voluntary public financing system for state-wide constitutional and General Assembly offices since 2008. Through financing from the Citizens' Election Fund, candidates that obtain the required number of small donations can receive a lump sum to fund their campaign. The program is very popular and in 2012, 77 percent of successful candidates were publicly financed.
A picture of the current state of the private retirement system, why this picture bodes ill for the future of retirement in the country, and why that system needs reform.
