Campaign contributions

Sanders is coming after Clinton because of speeches she gave to the big banks and her defense is that she never changed a vote because of the money she received for these speeches. This may satisfy most voters but not those who watch the inner workings of congress. One outstanding example happened during the Savings and Loans scandals of the 80’s. Recall that many S and L’s were in the process of going broke and the government wanted to shut them down but the money in the fund used to protect consumers from losses was running out and congress was needed to approve more funds. There were many S and L owners who were big donors to a number of senators and one of these was a man name Keating. He owned many S & L’s now called banks and made large donations to five senators who were in control of the fund used to protect consumers. Keating was making a lot of money keeping these failing banks open so he didn’t want the congress to approve more funds since they could then shut down the banks that were losing money. When the meeting came to approve the additional funds, five senators showed up at the meeting and while they did not say a word everyone knew they were there to postpone any action. The committee decided not to approve the needed funds and these banks stayed active for another year during which time the cost to pay off the losses to protect the consumers increased from 200 billion to 500 billion. These five senators just by their presence allowed this to happen and they can say that they never said a word to the committee. One of these five senators was John McCain and he later admitted that it was a mistake for him to attend that meeting. To prove that a politician allowed campaign contributions to affect governance is almost impossible but only a naïve person would believe that these donations are made for altruistic reasons.