A very smart, brave, and outspoken little 9 year old girl from Leesburg, VA was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer in 2012. Her name was Gabriella Miller. After making a trip to Paris, compliments of the Make a Wish Foundation, she explored ways to raise money and awareness for childhood cancer and successfully did both in impressive fashion. She helped 36 other children become recipients of their dream request from the Make-A-Wish Foundation. She also discovered that only a small percentage of federally budgeted funds went to childhood cancer research and so she lobbied Congress to do more.
Prior to this, a number of Republicans had been seeking to remove the voluntary Presidential election fund $3 taxes checkoff, including a Congressman from Mississippi named Gregg Harper. This fund was created in the '70s to reduce a candidate's reliance on huge contributions from individuals and special-interest groups. Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton. and George W. Bush utilized this big-money tempering fund before opponents of the system killed legislative efforts to update the system, which were needed to keep pace with the evolution of presidential campaigns(1). So, after 2004, the system became prohibitive to use, but remained. Part of the Presidential fund can be used to fund the major political conventions, according to the law. Some in Congress thought that previously unsuccessful attempts at dismantling the voluntary Presidential fund checkoff system may require a more piecemeal approach in order to be successful in removing it. Enter Republican Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Eric Cantor. Cantor was at the helm of hatching a plan to cut the funding of political conventions, which he saw as the most promising way to begin to disassemble the Presidential fund. So he went to Tom Cole, Republican Congressman from Oklahoma, who had previously offered up a bill to cut public funding for political conventions as a stand alone proposal. He asked Tom if he would withdraw his bill, and support a different strategy. Tom liked it (2). Cantor realized that the public funding cut to conventions, which was started after the Watergate scandal to reduce the influence of big money on conventions, was too much vinegar for the Congress to pass. You catch a whole lot more flies with honey, so Cantor surmised that marrying the cut with a different destination for the funds might be just the honey that was needed- money for none other than Gabriella Miller's cancer research cause.
It was determined that Gregg Harper would introduce the legislation, since Harper has a son with fragile-x syndrome and has championed legislation to assist the disabled in several ways, and shares the desire to abolish the Presidential fund. However, Mr. Harper's stance on both disability and medical research is certainly confusing to say the least. In 2008, Harper's campaign statement stated the following:
"Social Security is in trouble. Rampant disability fraud is costing American taxpayers millions of dollars. We must improve and enhance the investigation and prosecution of disability fraud(3)."
Yet, George W. Bush's former Social Security Administrator Michael J. Astrue estimated that the amount of Social Security Disability fraud is less than 1% of funds(4). Other experts on the subject have made similar statements. Further, the investigation of disability fraud is done through a process called Continuing Disability Reviews or CDRs. For every $1 spent on CDRs, potential benefit payments of $9 are saved which is a remarkable return on investment and well worth paying to guard taxpayer money(5). However, the last two years the Congress has appropriated around $250 million less than what is recommended by the Budget Control Act which Harper voted for. Based on a return of $9 for every dollar spent, over a billion more taxpayer dollars would be saved by fully funding CDRs. Harper's lack of outrage for this underfunding after claiming that we must enhance the investigations of "rampant" Social Security Disability fraud makes little sense at all. Harper also stated in 2008 that he was for reforming Social Security by exploring using private accounts for younger workers instead of the current publicly funded system(3). How he plans to fund Social Security Disability payments with private accounts is a mystery. Furthermore, his advocacy of medical research has a mixed record as well. In 2011, he voted for the budget bill HR1 which cut the National Institutes of Health Cancer Research by $1.6 Billion dollars(6). The sequester terms, which he voted in favor of, cut the NIH by $1.55 Billion dollars(7). The Gabriella Miller bill was to direct just $13 million of money toward childhood cancer research. This would be the same as taking $1,550 of someone's college money, and then later applauding their desire to go to college and personally making sure they received $11 to help pay for books. Better than nothing? Yes. Sensible given the massive amount you removed from their efforts? Heavens no! But I digress.
So back to less money going to mostly well-scripted political events that have too many cocktail bars and high priced cigars, and instead more going to support research for dying children. It sounds like a compassionate and sincere attempt to better use taxpayer funds to address the needs of some of our nations most vulnerable, innocent lives. If at this point you are wondering, though, what sense it makes for the $3 Presidential fund checkoff money to go to pediatric cancer research, you are certainly are not alone. But here is where the story gets interesting. About that $11 million that is going to childhood cancer research; apparently that amazing little girl was enough to get a law passed but not quite enough to guarantee it happens. Consider:
"...the bill would authorize funds to NIH, but only if the modest savings are specifically appropriated for that purpose. The bill does not go that second step, meaning no funds transfer will result (7)."
Excuse me? No funds transfer? The bill doesn't actually appropriate the money but only authorizes the money to be appropriated. Kind of like saying you will loan someone money...just as soon as you have some money in your wallet to loan. The promise of authorizing it to happen is there, but no money is actually appropriated to do it(8)! If this doesn't demonstrate Washington D.C. professional acting, then nothing does. The Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act DOES make sure the $3 Presidential checkoff money won't go to political conventions. However, the bill does not actually guarantee that the relatively small sum of money in question actually goes to pediatric cancer research at all. Another bill would be required to actually appropriate the money. To think that Gabriella Miller's name was used in this fashion is at the very least disgusting. At worst it is fraud. She deserves better.
But why then all the fuss? What is the end purpose of having Gregg Harper introduce a bill that removes voluntary taxpayer money from being used to help support political conventions? Well, it turns out that 23% of convention money was being supplied in this manner. Removing it means that the political conventions will need to be funded with even more money from the private sources which already fund them. And exactly who would that be?
"For the 2012 election cycle, the Republican confab took in about $40 million in corporate contributions from companies such as AT&T, Chevron, Google, Lockheed Martin and Microsoft. Democrats set up a separate committee, New American City, to accept corporate money and cover costs outside the convention hall in Charlotte, N.C. The group raised about $19 million from companies during the 2012 campaign. That figure included donations from Bank of America, the Coca-Cola Co., General Electric, Time Warner Cable and Wells Fargo(2)."
You heard that right. The conventions are heavily corporate sponsored events for both major political parties. If you want proof our Democracy is being sold to the highest bidder, consider the increase in corporate influence that was made readily available by eliminating almost a quarter of the funding for conventions by voluntary public money.
Gabriella Miller's brain tumor claimed her life last October. Just a few days ago President Obama signed the Gabriella Miller Kid First Research Act and made the following comment: "She fought the good fight. Gabriella didn't make it. She's in a better place(9)." Yes, indeed, and with respect to government so are corporations in America, sadly.
1.http://www.citizensforethics.org/...
2. http://thehill.com/...
3. http://www.ontheissues.org/...
4.http://www.mediaite.com/...
5. http://www.offthechartsblog.org/...
6.http://www.aacr.org/...
7.http://www.esquire.com/...
8.http://www.lwv.org/...
9.http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/...