Americans Say Money Controls Politics as Polling Reveals Deep Distrust of PACs, Lobbyists, and Special Interests

There was a time years ago where I really believed, hey, money is free speech and you earn that money and if you earn it legally, you should be able to do what you want to do with it and give it to who you want to give it to. And that includes politics. And there’s a big part of me that still wants to believe that that’s the way it should be. But I have seen time and time again how the money has corrupted the system to the point, and you guys look, let me know. By the way, let me know how you feel about this, where the story we’re about to talk about here in the YouTube chat. Let us know for those of you who are new, welcome. At the end of each show, Jason reads the best YouTube comments of the day. It’s brought to you by Black Sheep Plumbing. And in order to be a commenter on our YouTube chat, you got to be a subscriber, benefit of being a subscriber. I want to know how you guys feel about this.

Poll Shows Americans Increasingly Believe Money Dominates Politics

I’ve changed this. I think I am for putting, starting to put some real parameters around how money is given to politicians. If we’re not going to cap the amount of money that can be given, then we need to get rid of the PACs. We need to get rid of the dark money groups. We need to say, if you’re going to give money, you have to give it directly to the politician. We need to lift the caps like that, those that could be given to congressional candidates and just ban the political action committees. I mean, there’s just too much money flowing in. Niki Kelly laid out what that was two weeks ago on our show. How hard it is to track the money that Mike Braun and his groups gave, because there’s so many of them. It’s not right. At the very least, we have a right to know who’s giving to who. Who’s giving for what. It’s basically impossible. I mean, I’m really into this and I can’t follow it. There’s no way the average person is going to be able to follow it.

Campaign Spending and Special Interests Create Major Barriers for Outsider Candidates

And so here’s this polling from Politico. And look, I am at a point now where I think I am for monetary caps, period, because poor people have no chance in most cases to serve, especially any sort of higher office. I mean, you think about the amount of money that came in from these special interests. Let’s just use like the congressional race where I was, the amount of money from special interests that came in behind Jim Baird and Craig Haggard compared to John Piper, who got nothing. And look at Piper. Piper got 9% of the vote. A big part of that was this show. Guys, don’t kid yourself. His advertising on this show, a lot of people heard him and go, yeah, it pays to advertise here. Who’s the one guy who won easily? Who’s the one Senator who won easily? Greg Good. What’d he do? He advertised on this show. It works, guys. It does. But John Piper had no chance in that race. Not saying he would have won anyway. But certainly when you look at the special interest money that came in for both Baird and Haggard, no chance. And we see this in state Senate races, state House races. You see this in the congressional, all of the races, right? Unless you’re a mega money person, it’s why people are like, Rob should run for governor. And what have I told you guys? Unless someone can guarantee me $10 million, I’m not doing it because the 10 million that I would raise or would get would be equivalent to 100 million for some other candidate, because of all the earned media that I would get. And the creative way we would do our ads and spend the money. Look at what we’ve done here with a shoestring budget. But my point is, even with $10 million, you would likely be outspent 10 to 1. $10 million would make it an even playing field in terms of what we would turn that into with earned media. But you would get outspent 10 to 1. The average person would have, even with $10 million, would have no shot to be the governor of Indiana. That’s ridiculous. So according to Politico poll, 72% of Americans say there is too much money in politics, with just 5% disagreeing. That’s overwhelming, guys. This includes, and this is bipartisan by the way, 80% of people who voted for Kamala Harris, 77% of Trump voters. 39% say money can outright buy results, and another 34% say it can influence them if not buy them. So 73% of the public believe money can either outright buy results or influence them, but not buy or have influence them, but not buy them. So money dictates our elections according to 73% of the public, which matches right up with the polling results of 72% saying there’s too much money.

Bipartisan Voters Agree Wealthy Donors and Lobbyists Hold Too Much Influence

Sixty-one percent say billionaires have too much influence over US politics. 75% of Harris voters say that. But even a majority of Trump voters, 55% say that. 41% of people say special interests have too much influence, compared to 23% who oppose. So almost 2 to 1. 40% say foreign governments have too much influence, compared to 21% who oppose. So 2 to 1. 53% view money as corrupt and in need of stricter regulation, and that includes 56% of Trump voters.

Utilities, Data Centers, and Corporate Lobbying Fuel Public Distrust in Government

So the public gets it, right. These people who give to candidates, like I’m talking the big donors, right? They ain’t running soup kitchens. They’re doing it for a reason. These consult, the consultant class, the donor class, the lobbyist class, that’s industry, guys. It’s industry. People make handsome livings doing this stuff and everything they give or their clients give, they want something in return. Why do we keep getting screwed on utilities? Look at how much the utilities give to the politicians. Pick your favorite industry. Look at why they watered down the data center language that would have protected people from data centers this past year, or forced data centers to give bigger portions of their profits back to municipalities where they build the data centers. The data center people spent huge amounts of money at the end of the session to lobby the lawmakers. The public gets it.