Thread: Study: Congress Literally Doesn't Care What You Think

A friend sent this to me today, and I wanted to share it here:

https://represent.us/action/theproblem-4/

Study: Congress literally doesn’t care what you think
Have you ever felt like the government doesn’t really care what you think?

Professors Martin Gilens (Princeton University) and Benjamin I. Page (Northwestern University) looked at more than 20 years worth of data to answer a simple question: Does the government represent the people?

Their study took data from nearly 2000 public opinion surveys and compared it to the policies that ended up becoming law. In other words, they compared what the public wanted to what the government actually did. What they found was extremely unsettling: The opinions of 90% of Americans has essentially no impact at all.


This video gives a quick rundown of their findings — it all boils down to one simple graph:
Note: All sources linked at the bottom of this page
Princeton University study: Public opinion has “near-zero” impact on U.S. law.

Gilens & Page found that the number of Americans for or against any idea has no impact on the likelihood that Congress will make it law.

“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

One thing that does have an influence? Money. While the opinions of the bottom 90% of income earners in America have a “statistically non-significant impact,” Economic elites, business interests, and people who can afford lobbyists still carry major influence.
Nearly every issue we face as a nation is caught in the grip of corruption.


From taxation to national debt, education to the economy, America is struggling to address our most serious issues.Moneyed interests get what they want, and the rest of us pay the price.
They spend billions influencing America’s government. We give them trillions in return.


In the last 5 years alone, the 200 most politically active companies in the US spent $5.8 billion influencing our government with lobbying and campaign contributions.
Those same companies got $4.4 trillion in taxpayer support — earning a return of 750 times their investment.
It’s a vicious cycle of legalized corruption.


As the cost of winning elections explodes, politicians of both political parties become ever more dependent on the tiny slice of the population who can bankroll their campaigns.
To win a Senate seat in 2014, candidates had to raise $14,351 every single day. Just .05% of Americans donate more than $10,000 in any election, so it’s perfectly clear who candidates will turn to first, and who they’re indebted to when they win.
In return for campaign donations, elected officials pass laws that are good for their mega-donors, and bad for the rest of us.


Our elected officials spend 30-70% of their time in office fundraising for the next election. When they’re not fundraising, they have no choice but to make sure the laws they pass keep their major donors happy — or they won’t be able to run in the next election.

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Until it’s addressed, Corruption will continue to block progress on every issue.

Represent.Us has a plan to tackle corruption, and it’s already winning:

Learn about the solution

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Sources

1. Gilens and Page, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” Perspective on Politics, 2014.
2. Washington Post, “Rich People Rule!” 2014.
3. Washington Post, “Once again, U.S. has most expensive, least effective health care system in survey,” 2014.
4. Forbes Opinion, “The tax code is a hopeless complex, economy-suffocating mess,” 2013.
5. CNN, “Americans pay more for slower Internet,” 2014.
6. The Hill, “Sanders requests DOD meeting over wasteful spending,” 2015.
7. CBS News, “Wastebook 2014: Government’s questionable spending,” 2014.
8. The Heritage Foundation, Budget Book, 2015.
9. The Atlantic, “American schools vs. the world: expensive, unequal, bad at math,” 2013.
10. CNN Opinion, “War on drugs a trillion-dollar failure,” 2012.
11. Feeding America, Child Hunger Fact Sheet, 2014.
12. New York Times, “Banks’ lobbyists help in drafting financial bills,” 2014.
13. New York Times, “Wall Street seeks to tuck Dodd-Frank changes in budget bill,” 2014
14. Sunlight Foundation, “Fixed Fortunes: Biggest corporate political interests spend billions, get trillions,” 2014.
15. Sunlight Foundation, Fixed Fortunes database, 2015.

If this is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, we have "trouble right here in River City".

Now, I know some of you are tired of me posting about the FairTax, but listen up, if the Princeton/Northwestern Study is true, then we have to change the way to control our government, and as I've explained a few times before, the FairTax gives us that control.

When Americans are happy and doing well, we spend money, when are aren't, we don't. The FairTax tells through our spending when we're happy and doing well, because it's a voluntary tax on spending, happiness, and doing well. For the first time since 1913, the FairTax would give Americans their power back because when we're spending because we're happy and doing well, our businesses are doing well, and when our businesses are doing well, they're supporting the politicians who are ensuring our well-being which computes directly into our spending.

Furthermore, when we're spending because we're happy and doing well, our government does well. As a consequence, everyone does well by keeping us happy and doing well. When they try these plots, schemes and stunts like immigration and free trade treason and gun control and so forth, things that harm us, make us unhappy, and cause us not to do well, then we cutback on our spending, businesses say to the government "what are you doing, you're messing up my customers" and the government says "oh sorry, we'll correct that straight-away".

Because the FairTax is collected monthly and public information that can be reported on the news and in the newspapers much like a stock report, everyone knows every month how much our taxable purchases amount to, and how much revenue the government is going to collect that month. You're not happy, make 'em suffer. The turn-around on a correction is no longer 2 years, 4 years, or 6 years, it's monthly.

After all, it's obviously not our opinions or votes they want, it's our money. If they think they can live their Fat Cat Lifestyles under the FairTax by selling out American Workers, American Citizens and American Voters, then they'll just have to think again.

FairTax legislation is HR 25 in the US House of Representatives and S 155 in the US Senate.

Patriots are also up against another aspect of elected representatives being self-serving: 'Bamacrats are throwing American workers under the bus, to get the future votes of all those Undocumented Democrats. (The Repub leadership is huffing and puffing about 'Bama's illegal executive amnesty, then phoning their big money donors, to let those folks know that more surplus labor is on way. So they're every bit as corrupt as are 'Bamacrats, but their selling out American workers is consistent with politicos pandering to big money.)
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Americans first in this magnificent country

American jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade

Originally Posted by vistalad

Patriots are also up against another aspect of elected representatives being self-serving: 'Bamacrats are throwing American workers under the bus, to get the future votes of all those Undocumented Democrats. (The Repub leadership is huffing and puffing about 'Bama's illegal executive amnesty, then phoning their big money donors, to let those folks know that more surplus labor is on way. So they're every bit as corrupt as are 'Bamacrats, but their selling out American workers is consistent with politicos pandering to big money.)
**************************************
Americans first in this magnificent country

American jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade

That's basically what the Study found to be the case. It's not the opinion, it's not the will of the people, it's the money. You know back in the day when basically just well to do or "rich" people served in Congress, they did so without pay for the most part, they had their own lives, careers, businesses and enterprises and spent as little time in DC as they could get away with. I opposed the big salary increases for Congress for that reason, because it seemed to me that if you couldn't afford to serve our country for free or a small stipend, you would be looking to serve for the money associated with it. And, I do believe that's what we've ended up with.

ADD THESE FACTS TO THIS FAKE R vs. D BS GAME THEY HAVE US PAYING. We dont know it yet, but WE ARE ALL READY A SOCIALIST NATION.(Haves vs. Have Nots)
1. A Congressional MILLIONAIRE VOTING MAJORITY - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DHgw2bs0vg
2. Washington DC is NOW the RICHEST CITY IN AMERICA.(With the HIGHEST Homeless Rate. Hmmmm?) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhWbqs_awQk
3. Congress has "RULED" that they CAN NOT be INVESTIGATED for STEALING. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DanXl8cRXg

"GO TEAM BLUE OR RED! Hey lets VOTE in 2016" What a FN Joke.