The truth about corporations donations to politicians. inform me.

[Whisp]

Obama has accepted money from corporations for his campaign. I thought that most of his donations came from individual donors. When he said this during his campaign, was he lieing and is a corporate stooge like so many here call him?

Over quite some time now I've been meaning to ask the much more wiser here about something I'm very much confused over.

When a 'corporation' donates money to a party or an individual, it's pretty well accepted they are doing so to hopefully influence policy in their favour.

1. does this money come directly from the CEOs and the corporate 'person' itself? What is the maximum amount of money a corporation is legally allowed to donate to a candidate?

2. does this so called 'corporate donation' also mean individuals who happen to work for said corporation. Ex. Amy Leftee works for Goldman Sachs as a janitor, she saved a bit of money to contribute to Obama's Presidential campaign and has to list where she is employed. Is she lumped in with the 'corporate donation' above?

Would really appreciate some wisdom on this.

[Arkana]

1. Option #2, mostly.

[Whisp]

2. so then this 'corporate stooge' label, for both dem or pug

is misleading.

Unless the bosses of all these companies threaten their employees to vote a certain way, which is illegal, basically most donations are really from individuals. My Amy Leftee in my example above, could just be a democrat who happens to work as a janitor at Goldman Sachs, along with her many colleagues, all their names get lumped into the 'corporate donation'....

truth and things have been sooooo twisted, she as an individual is considered to be trying to influence policy in favour of her company, not just voting for who she thinks is the best choice.

Now i'm not by any means saying that corporations don't have a hefty influence with their power and money with politicians. Just that this probably isn't the way they do it, by campaign donations.

:shrug:

[alstephenson]

13. I think the "corporate" donations, which are really individual donations of people working there,

are made through the corporation's PAC. I'm no expert, either, but I was listening to someone on the radio this morning that seemed quite knowledgeable. He said that the big corporate PACS give to both parties, kind of like "hedging their bet", which is rather ironic in the case of the financial industry. So people that work for a company, through the corporate PACS, can contribute to whomever they want. It's not like a candidate could just say they don't want that money, especially since contributions are not supposed to influence a candidate. Since President Obama ran on a message which included financial reform,I don't see how someone could say those contributions influenced him. I think a big problem will be the corporations being able to spend unlimited amounts on advertising and promotion of a candidate (or against a candidate). Thanks, Supreme Court!

[anigbrowl]

19. Not exactly

When you donate more than $250 (I think, forget exact #) as an individual, you have to declare who your employer is. So even if you do it at home through the Obama website, it would show up. Come to think of it, I think they collected that info anyway regardless of amount, but maybe they're only required to report donations in excess of $250 to the FEC.

http://www.fec.gov/info/forms.shtml for more info, don't have time to dig through it all now.

[alstephenson]

21. Thanks!

[DURHAM D]

3. Corporations can't donate to individual campaigns.

I know this because I tested it. I wrote a corporate check for $500 to a U.S. senate candidate several years back. About three months later I got the check back - un-cashed and with a nice letter.

[Whisp]

5. so that confuses me even more.

whats all this talk about Obama (and all politicians then) accepting corporate money from Goldman Sachs, in fact, the Most.

or am I thinking that is a donation to The Democratic Party overall? oiy.So if the is true, do all the democrats share this money pool?

oiy!?

[DURHAM D]

7. They track "place of employement" or "employer" on donations. nt

[Whisp]

9. so the 19.5 million Obama got from Goldman Sachs is not from the Mucky Mucks...

but from the individual employees. so the bigger the company is, the more employees it has, most likely they will contribute a lot of money.

can someone who knows this for sure please just come out and say it.

I hate it when shit like this doesn't get said on TV news and I'm getting the feeling its uncomfortable to talk about it here too.

[DURHAM D]

11. See my post #10 below. nt

[amborin]

8. they can through a

PAC

"Use of PACs (Prior to 2010)
When an interest group, union, or corporation wants to contribute to federal candidates or parties, it must do so through a PAC. These PACs receive and raise money from a "restricted class," generally consisting of managers and shareholders in the case of a corporation, and members in the case of a union or other interest group. The PAC may then make donations to political campaigns. PACs and individuals are the only entities allowed to contribute funds to candidates for federal office. Contributions from corporate or labor union treasuries are illegal, though they may sponsor a PAC and provide financial support for its administration and fundraising. Overall, PACs account for less than thirty percent of total contributions in U.S. Congressional races, and considerably less in presidential races.

Contributions by individuals to federal PACs are limited to $5,000 per year. Corporations and unions may not contribute directly to federal PACs, though they may pay for the administrative costs of a PAC affiliated with the specific corporation or union. Corporate-affiliated PACs may only solicit contributions from executives, shareholders, and their families, while union-affiliated PACs may only solicit contributions from members. "Independent" PACs not affiliated with a corporation, union, or trade or membership association may solicit contributions from the general public but must pay their operating costs from these regulated contributions.

[Whisp]

12. thankyou! ruminates...

so, a Political Action Committee is the only way for a 'corporate person' to donate to a campaign but they can only get the money from the top tier of their own company or union and can't go out begging for donations from their employees or Pete on the street.

Did I simplify it correctly?

I wonder is there is a list of the PACs that donated what to whom. Must be but I woulnd't have a clue where to start to look.

"""Overall, PACs account for less than thirty percent of total contributions in U.S. Congressional races, and considerably less in presidential races.""" The way this is worded makes it sound the amount is on the trivial side, but if you are talking about sooo much big money involved in elections, this is not a trivial percentage at all.

===
on edit: Would like to know clearer about who exactly as a member of a PAC can contribute and who they can ask to contribute. my understandiing is it's pretty limited to the ruling classes of corporations and their shareholders. Is this on the right track?

[alstephenson]

14. Thanks! That really helps to clarify the relationships.

[amborin]

16. they can, through

a pac

[DURHAM D]

20. To individual campaigns? nt

[amborin]

4. Goldman Sachs was a big donor to Obama's campaign, according to open secrets:

Health

Obama, Barack $19,462,986
McCain, John $7,389,547
Clinton, Hillary $6,397,849
Romney, Mitt $2,283,350
Giuliani, Rudy $2,075,197
Paul, Ron $828,483
Richardson, Bill $778,170
Edwards, John $587,941
Thompson, Fred $537,429
Huckabee, Mike $491,202
Dodd, Chris $339,850
Biden, Joe $283,880
Brownback, Sam $108,580
Thompson, Tommy $67,811
Nader, Ralph $62,251
Kucinich, Dennis $54,357
Vilsack, Tom $32,800
Tancredo, Tom $31,600
Hunter, Duncan $27,930
Barr, Bob $22,550
Gilmore, Jim $15,600
Gravel, Mike $11,721
Keyes, Alan $11,600
Baldwin, Chuck $6,050

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/sectors.php?sector=H


Finance Industry Campaign Donations:

Finance/Insur/RealEst

Obama, Barack $39,480,169
McCain, John $28,930,292
Clinton, Hillary $19,249,595
Romney, Mitt $13,710,157
Giuliani, Rudy $13,411,959
Dodd, Chris $5,480,286
Richardson, Bill $2,916,752
Edwards, John $2,125,162
Thompson, Fred $1,943,704
Biden, Joe $1,504,861
Huckabee, Mike $1,320,265
Paul, Ron $1,249,206
Brownback, Sam $248,637
Vilsack, Tom $175,900
Thompson, Tommy $120,409
Hunter, Duncan $109,650
Nader, Ralph $77,996
Gilmore, Jim $63,150
Kucinich, Dennis $56,910
Tancredo, Tom $53,260
Barr, Bob $39,259
Gravel, Mike $14,825
Keyes, Alan $8,901
Baldwin, Chuck $7,342
McKinney, Cynthia $4,050

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/sectors.php?sector=F


and, Goldman Sachs was the #2 donor to Obama's prez campaign:


list of top donors to Obama's campaign:


Goldman Sachs $994,795 ***********
Harvard University $854,747
Microsoft Corp $833,617
Google Inc $803,436
Citigroup Inc $701,290 ************
JPMorgan Chase & Co $695,132 *************
Time Warner $590,084
Sidley Austin LLP $588,598
Stanford University $586,557
National Amusements Inc $551,683
UBS AG $543,219
Wilmerhale Llp $542,618
Skadden, Arps et al $530,839
IBM Corp $528,822
Columbia University $528,302
Morgan Stanley $514,881 *****************
General Electric $499,130
US Government $494,820
Latham & Watkins $493,835





The Bankers on Obama's Team

The latest round of Wall Street muckety-mucks now in charge of regulation.

— By Andy Kroll


Here's a short list of Obama officials who got their start in the private sector—many, like Paulson, at "Government Sachs."


Neal Wolin
Deputy secretary of the treasury (Tim Geithner's No. 2)
Exec at one of the largest insurance and investment firms

Mark Patterson
Treasury secretary's chief of staff
Goldman Sachs lobbyist

Gene Sperling
Counselor to the treasury secretary
Made nearly $900,000 advising Goldman Sachs

Larry Summers
Obama's chief economic adviser
Made $5 million as managing director of a hedge fund

Rahm Emanuel
White House chief of staff
Made $16 million as a partner at a Chicago investment bank

Herbert Allison
Assistant secretary of the treasury (oversees TARP)
Longtime exec at Merrill Lynch; headed Fannie Mae

Kim Wallace
Assistant secretary of the treasury for legislative affairs
Managing director at Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers

Karthik Ramanathan
Acting assistant treasury secretary for financial markets
Foreign exchange dealer at Goldman Sachs

Matthew Kabaker
Deputy assistant secretary of the treasury
Made $5.8 million at the Blackstone Group in 2008-2009

Lewis Alexander
Counselor to the treasury secretary
Chief economist at Citigroup; paid $2.4 million in 2008-2009

Adam Storch
Managing executive of the SEC's Division of Enforcement
VP of Goldman Sachs' Business Intelligence Group

Lee Sachs
Counselor to the treasury secretary
Made more than $3 million at a New York hedge fund

Gary Gensler
Chairman of Commodity Futures Trading Commission
18 years at Goldman Sachs, where he made partner

Michael Froman
Deputy assistant to Obama, deputy nat'l security adviser
Managing director of a Citigroup investment arm

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/henhouse-meet-f ...

[Whisp]

6. that 19.5 million came from the employees?

someone here said a corporation cannot donate directly to an individual politician.

someone has to be wrong here.

[DURHAM D]

10. The information from Post #4 is from PAC donations only -

not the corporations and not individual donors.

The PAC calculations recognize only those donations of greater that $200 from an individual to the PAC.

[amborin]

15. it's from the corporation,

through its pac

[Whisp]

17. would you agree that it would be fair when listing donations that...

both the PAC donations Plus the employees from that certain corporations donations where both present, to get a fairer idea of where the larger portion of that money comes from?

[Whisp]

18. ok, now I see that total includes the dem primaries as well.

I'm not sure when they can officially start to donate, but my uneducated guess is they wait until they have a fair idea who has the better chance and dump that money there.

So its the chicken and egg thing - did Obama win because he got more PAC money than all the rest, or did the PAC money come to him because it looked good for him to win.

I don't know these things.

[joe_sixpack]

22. Surprising....

I didn't realize corporations gave that much to dem candidates.

[Whisp]

23. thanks all, I learned a lot.

19.5 million came from PAC money/Corporate money (lets say thats 20% of the total, tho some info said pac money for federal elections is lower than the 30% for congress they didn't give a percentage. 20% may be high)

lets round it off for my mathless head.

20% came from PACS/Corps
80% came from individuals that work for Goldman Sachs.