Should TARP recipients' PACs be barred from making political contributions?

Yes

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by Elizabeth M. Young

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It is unthinkable that TARP recipients should be able to influence government decision making before they repay the loans. A condition of the TARP support should have been a prohibition from lobbying or donating campaign money to the Senators and Representatives who are making decisions about TARP money. Bailout funds should be combined with restrictions as with any other form of bankruptcy or receivership.

The recently created position of "Pay Czar" within the U.S. Treasury department is an example of increased oversight over the activities of corporations which receive TARP funds. The "Pay Czar" is charged with monitoring and stopping excessive executive compensation that was not contractually obligated before the TARP funds went into effect.

It is equally essential to monitor influence peddling by TARP recipients in all of its forms. Political contributions and lobbying do affect the votes of our decision makers. When funds and lobbying attempts are made by companies which later benefit from taxpayer's funds, our system of government is severely jeapordized.

Political contributions by powerful interests, combined with the "revolving door" activities of legislators who end up working for the same interests is a recipe for the most destructive forms of corruption. The picture of influence is astounding when voting records, campaign speeches, written communications, and statements made during public appearances are compared to sources of political contributions.

Senators and representatives "sell" ideas to their constituencies in many ways. Are they selling their own visions for America's recovery from eight years of disaster or are they selling their financial contributor's visions for redirecting America's treasure into their own bank accounts?

There are unaffiliated, objective websites where anyone with internet access can monitor all of the contributions that our representatives and senators take in. There are websites for evaluating voting records so that they can be compared to a senator's or representative's major sources of political income.

Legislation can be examined and tracked from the time that it is introduced; long before the legislation becomes a top news story. Every legislative player involved in introducing or fighting a particular legislation can be researched to determine whether their backing is consistent with their previous stands on the issues, or whether there is an anomaly that hints at "pay to play" political behavior.

Until there are prohibitions against "revolving door" jobs, lobbying, and political contributions by firms which benefit from TARP funds, we the people can monitor our own congressperson and representative's activities, donors, voting records, and public utterances. We each vote for, and have one senator and one representative, so the job should be easy, given the user friendly state of the internet these days.

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