Book Review: Dollar Democracy: With Liberty and Justice for Some by Peter Mathews (Amazon 2014)
In his current book, Dollar Democracy: With Liberty and Justice for Some, Long Beach political professor, oft-time Democratic candidate, and local radio personality Peter Mathews argues government would have more than enough money to invest in healthcare, education, and environmental protection if corporate tax loopholes were closed and a progressive income tax reinstated on incomes over $1 million.
“Legalized tax avoidance and regulation avoidance are not victimless acts,” Mathews argues. He cites studies (done in the eighties) to show campaign contributors get their way on how their chosen legislators vote about eighty percent of the time.
As an example Mathews relates his own experience with corporate campaign funding. In 1994 he was running for what at the time was California’s Thirty-eighth Congressional District. What Mathews calls "Dollar Democracy" resulted, hence, his book's title. First ARCO PAC wouldn’t give him any money after he frankly told them he wanted to close corporate tax loopholes.
The non-profit California League of Conservation Voters wouldn’t give him any money, either. Despite giving him a 100% favorability rating, they decided he wasn’t “financially viable.” The reasoning was that since his opponent raised money from corporations and Mathews didn't, Mathews couldn't compete as a serious candidate.
Much of the book discusses how Dollar Democracy victimizes California’s higher education system. Mathews, being an educator, knows first-hand the effect of Dollar Democracy on his young bright pol-sci students. Mathews argues that if California were to close corporate tax loopholes, the state would get $90 billion—and with $5 billion, every community college in the state could provide free education. (Just think what could be done with the other $85 billion.)
If California stands that much to gain from closing corporate tax loopholes at the state level, what about federal taxes? By Mathews' numbers, the United States government could gain $1 trillion by closing corporate tax loopholes. For $400 billion, all American colleges and universities could be free, with $600 billion leftover (almost the same as the amount spent on the 2008 bank bailout).
Another demonstration of Dollar Democracy is seen by the favors politicians give the oil industry. California could close its oil severance tax loophole without damaging its economy, Mathews notes, as Alaska, Texas, and Louisiana have done. He demonstrates how Dollar Democracy has defeated efforts to do so, with the majority of California politicians failing to stand up to big oil. At the federal level Dollar Democracy is also how the Halliburton Corporation spent $747 billion lobbying politicians and in return got hydraulic fracturing exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Mathews also thoroughly discusses how Obama and the Democratic leadership acted like puppets, manipulated by the healthcare industry’s heavy financing of many congress members, during the creation of the 2010 Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"). Obama and the Democrats structured the act to benefit corporations--who didn't like it anyway.
Mathews observes, “The president never attempted to fight for a truly universal single-payer Medicare-for-all system.” As a result America remains the only major country with no universal healthcare.
Saddest of Mathews' many examples may be the effect of Dollar Democracy on Americans' jobs--and jobs around the world--as corporations outsource labor. Mathews vividly describes how Chinese factory laborers who cut iPhone glass work in conditions very much like nineteenth-century sweatshops.
If corporations don't move to third-world countries, they import the third world to America, with the approval of politicians who practice Dollar Democracy. For former Long Beach resident Kevin Flanagan, outsourcing led to his death. He was a computer programmer at Bank of America’s Concorde office. He committed suicide after being ordered to train his replacement—an Indian immigrant that a government program allowed the banking giant to hire for barely above minimum wage. Don't blame the Indian immigrant for taking Flanagan's job away--it was Bank of America, with a little help from Dollar Democracy.
As a solution Mathews advocates public campaign funding (state and federal "clean money" laws), more citizen involvement, and more transparency. He provides the Web sites maplight.org and www.followthemoney.org to identify politicians who practice Dollar Democracy.
Where Mathews’ book falls short is that its scope is too broad. It neglects to provide balance, giving little space for any solution other than the movement to reverse the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision.
Mathews does provide one minor counter-argument from Arizona politician Mark Spitzer, who originally was against government-funded campaigns. One passage quotes Spitzer with, “I thought that the proponents were trying to take politics out of politics and that just doesn’t work.”
Such attempt at balance comes up very weak--Spitzer had doubts but changed his mind when he campaigned for the Arizona Corporation Commission. He’d have been vulnerable to conflict-of-interest charges had he accepted corporate money. He won, Mathews argues, only because of Arizona's "clean money" law.
Little discussion is spent on the fact that sometimes money just doesn't buy votes. Mathews spends a considerable portion of Dollar Democracy discussing the campaigns of Paul Wellstone, the late senator from Minnesota who was outspent seven-to-one in his 1990 campaign but won on ideas. Unbought votes, not laws, actually may be America's best weapon against Dollar Democracy.