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WORD COUNT
281
JUNE 25, 2008
THE TOXIC CORRUPTION
OF OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM – by Jim Hightower
EnergySolutions Inc.
That name has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? But whose energy problems
is this company trying to solve?
It’s, for one. That
country has 20,000 tons of nuclear waste that it wants to dump
somewhere, so this
Salt Lake City
corporation says that, for several million dollars, it will gladly
import its waste and bury it in Western Utah. Great. Our country can’t
figure out what to do with our own nuclear nasties, yet this corporate
huckster would throw open our borders to everyone's trash. Send us your
tired, your poor, your nuclear waste!
Not wanting
America to be turned
into a global dumpster, some lawmakers are trying to ban the importation
of radioactive foreign waste. EnergySolutions has responded by applying
the handy, dandy solution used for wiping away all corporate problems in
Washington: money. In the last four years, company executives and
investors have upped their political giving tenfold, dumping nearly
$400,000 into congressional campaign coffers. They’ve also ramped up the
corporation’s spending on Washington lobbyists, topping a million bucks
last year.
When confronted with
the obvious charge that they are trying to buy votes, Energy Solutions
asserted that it is merely buying “access” to lawmakers. As a corporate
spokesman explained, campaign cash “gives us the opportunity to
participate with elected officials."
In other words, the
opportunity to participate with elected official “requires a major cash
transaction" –a corruption that shuts out ordinary citizens, perverts
the public interest, and mocks our democracy. This is a bigger, more
toxic problem than nuclear waste, and one solution is to take the
corrupt money out of the system with public financing of congressional
elections. Learn more at
www.publiccampaign.org .
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For more information
on Jim Hightower’s work – and to subscribe to his award-winning monthly
newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown, visit
www.jimhightower.com -- A photo of Jim Hightower
is available CLICK HERE
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