...The 33rd US President, Harry S. Truman
The Citizen-United decision has thrown a huge monkey–wrench into America’s elections.
We all knew the elections were going to be all about “the money” after the Citizens-United debacle came down from the conservative and activist US Supreme Court. But the whole election process has taken a turn that no one had thought about with the beginning of the 2012 election season.
First we’ve already had the 13 Republican so called “Debates”, (and watch out, they are talking about having another 13 debates before it’s all over). These bogus “political events” have turned into being mostly fund-raising events for some of these people that have had no intention of actually running for the US presidency.
I say this because both Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich did not even set up and support any traditional election organizations around the country. They instead, both did their so called, “campaigning” by going on tours for selling and signing their latest books.
And the crazy Congresswoman, Michele Bachmann, who knows that she is not going to be the GOP nominee, she is using the debates for fund-raise for her next House election campaign. It is also now appearing that the GOP candidate Rick Santorum is just looking for more media-exposer for increasing his pay-check when he returns as a FOX TV contributor. And Ron Paul is staying in the debates for increasing his influence for being included in the decision making process at the 2012 Republican convention.
But the real results are that we now have to listen to all the “big money” rhetoric that is being espoused, while the rest of the nation’s citizens are striving to just keep their heads above water. (The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) just announced last week that for the first time in US history, 1 out of every 2 Americans is considered either poor or living in poverty.)
As for some examples of the latest rhetoric, Mitt Romney tried to make a $10,000 bet with Texas Governor Rick Perry to resolve their dispute over health care during one of their recent TV Debates. And the hateful right-wing radio talker, Michael Savage, is now offering Newt Gingrich “one million dollars to drop out of the presidential race”.
But, why would Savage offer only one million dollars for Newt to drop out?
Gingrich had already received $1.6 million for being a lobbyist / historian for the mortgage giant Freddie Mac. And he gets $60,000 for each of his public speeches, based on his own boastful account. He reportedly has also generated $100 million in revenues by trading in on his long-time Washington connections.
When Romney was criticized for the ridiculous $10,000 debate bet with Governor Perry, Romney then went on FOX to say that Gingrich should be returning the $1.6 million he received from Freddie Mac. That comment led Gingrich to then suggest that Romney should “give back all the money he’s earned [at Bain Capital] on bankrupting companies and laying off employees.”
Money, money, and more money. Kind of sounds like a gang of kids arguing on the playground, doesn’t it?
As was stated by the Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, “...if Savage was a few zeros short on Gingrich’s price tag, his instincts were correct: Gingrich and his rivals are most definitely up for sale. The Republican nominating contest resembles nothing so much as a Christie’s wine auction, as candidates accept, and toss about, dollar figures beyond the comprehension of the people they would serve.”
Because of Citizens-United, we must now look at what President Obama has to do, just to be competitive. He is now required to raise up to $1 billion in campaign contributions for the 2012 campaign. That’s up from the $750 million he brought in for his 2008 campaign.
More and more it’s becoming that if you aren’t a millionaire, or billionaire, you will be required to raise millions to run for any national elections, or re-elections. In other words, all of Congress is more than ever, “up for sale” to the highest bidder.
But, did the conservatives on the US Supreme Court possibly over-step themselves by developing a bogus legal case that allowed something like Citizens-United to pass?
Because of these massive effects of Citizen-United, in recent days, Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent has proposed a way out of this mess. He has presented a constitutional amendment that would outlaw corporate campaign contributions, overturning the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. There are also other individuals in congress putting forward bills and amendments, but the DC lobbyist (with unlimited financing) are hard at work in attempting to make sure that Senator Sanders and the others fail at their patriotic attempts.
This is all such a difference as to what it was like with previous US presidents.
Take for instance, Harry S. Truman, the 33rd US President.
On his first day of once again becoming a private citizen, refusing official transportation, Truman instead drove his brand-new Chrysler New Yorker automobile, with his wife, Bess accompanying him, all the way home to Independence, Missouri. No Secret Service protection, motorcade or Air Force One.
When Harry Truman had become President, the only asset he had was the home he and his wife Bess owned in Independence, which they had inherited from his mother-in-law.
Once Truman left the office of the president, Truman quickly decided that he did not wish to be on any company’s corporate payroll. He believed that taking advantage of such financial opportunities would diminish the integrity of the nation's highest office. He also turned down numerous offers for any commercial endorsements. (Fat chance of that happening today!)
Due to his business losses during the Great Depression, Truman and his wife had no real personal savings, so as a result, they faced serious financial challenges.
Once Truman left the White House, his only source of income was his old WWI army pension of $112.56 per month. Former members of Congress and the federal courts already received a federal retirement package, but in 1953, there was no such benefit package for former presidents.
So, Truman had to take out a personal loan from a Missouri bank shortly after leaving office.
He then set about establishing another precedent for future former chief executives: making a book deal for his memoirs of his time as president. For his memoirs, Truman received a flat payment of $670,000. Unfortunately, he had to pay two-thirds of that in taxes. He later stated that he had calculated that he ended up with $37,000, after he paid his book-writing assistants.
Even though Truman only received one flat fee, his memoirs were a commercial and critical success for the publisher, and there were multiple re-prints of both books. They were originally published in two volumes in 1955 and 1956. The book titles were: Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Year of Decisions and Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Years of Trial and Hope.
It wasn’t until 1958, that Congress passed the Former Presidents Act that offered a $25,000 yearly pension to each former president. It is highly likely that Truman's financial status played a role in the law's enactment. The one other living former president at the time, Herbert Hoover, also took the new pension. Even though Hoover did not need the money; he reportedly took it to avoid embarrassing President Truman, who had become a very close friend.
The contrast between Harry S. Truman and today’s GOP candidates shows just how low things have gotten in the attitude of those individuals currently running for the highest office in the land.
God help us if one of these Republican dofuse candidates gets into office.
Copyright: G.Ater 2011
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