Well, the Big Business guys are transparent about one thing: They can’t stand the idea of the public holding them to account for their attempts to buy elections and influence policy, or even that they be prevented from corrupting the government contracting process through campaign spending.
The latest: They are so terrified even of having their political spending disclosed that they are pushing in Congress legislation that would prohibit the government from requiring contractors to disclose their campaign-related spending.
Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, is carrying their water, with the Orwellian “Keeping Politics Out of Federal Contracting Act,” a bill that recently passed the Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs and may well become law unless citizens move quickly to help stop this abomination.
The Collins initiative is in response to an excellent initiative floated by the Obama administration, but which the White House failed to implement. The simple idea was to require government contractors to disclose their campaign-related spending, including the kind of secret corporate campaign expenditures enabled by the Citizens United decision.
Contractor disclosure is important for two key reasons. First, virtually every major corporation enters into contracts with the government, so if contractors are required to disclose their campaign spending, that would cover most giant businesses. Second, the corrupting pall of campaign-related contributions is worst in the area of government contracting, since this is where the direct payoffs to corporations from political spending are highest. Disclosure will help mitigate the campaign-contractor corruption nexus.
Last year, it leaked that the Obama administration was considering an executive order requiring contractor disclosure.
