CMS Energy

How Big Business Influences The Super Committee Members

“All politics is local”–Thomas Phillip “Tip” O’Neill, Jr.

, Speaker of the House, 1977 to 1987Twelve members of Congress have been tasked with producing legislation to cut up to $1.5 trillion out of the federal budget over the next decade. Like all politicians who rely on donations from their constituency, the twelve are beholden to local interests. These interests can influence the impartiality of their decisions if they put local interests ahead of national ones. 24/7 Wall St. has reviewed the members’ voting records, the bills they introduced and the contributions they received to see how their legislative actions correlate with the interests of their top monetary contributors.Each member of the so-called “super committee” gets a large portion of his or her campaign contributions from a relatively small number of donors, mostly corporations. Representatives and Senators may well have only national interest in mind when they vote. But it is also likely that the interests of their cont...

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