Remember what I said about 'Follow the money'?

A few days ago I reported on the Center for Responsive Politics and its listing of the top 140 donors to political parties over the past couple of decades. I was cynically reminded of that list during the recent brouhaha over whether or not Republican efforts to cut government spending were a good idea.

The Web page of the Democratic Party's Senators reported last week as follows:

House GOP Spending Measure Would Cut U.S. Economic Growth By As Much as 2%, Nonpartisan Economic Analysis Finds

Schumer Responds: Analysis Proves House GOP Proposal is 'Recipe for Double-Dip Recession'

Washington, DC - U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer released the following statement Wednesday after Goldman Sachs issued an independent economic analysis finding that the House Republicans’ funding measure would reduce U.S. economic growth by 1.5 to 2 percentage points in the second and third quarters of this year:

"This nonpartisan study proves that the House Republicans’ proposal is a recipe for a double-dip recession. Just as the economy is beginning to pick up a little steam, the Republican budget would snuff out any chance of recovery. This analysis puts a dagger through the heart of their ‘cut-and-grow’ fantasy. We need to reduce the deficit, but we must do it by striking the right balance between cutting spending and growing the economy. According to independent economists, the House Republicans’ proposal gets this balance all wrong. The verdict is in on their proposal, and nonpartisan economists give it an ‘F’."

There's more at the link. Bold print and font size variations are as per the original report.

Sounds fairly clear-cut, right? Not so fast . . . According to that report from the Center for Responsive Politics, Goldman Sachs was the fifth-largest political donor during the period in question. The company reportedly donated $33,387,252, of which 61% went to the Democratic Party or individual Democrat politicians.

Given that leaning towards the political party making the claims cited above, would you, dear reader, consider Goldman Sachs to be an impartial, disinterested, 'nonpartisan' observer, and its observations about the Republican Party's efforts to cut spending to be equally impartial and disinterested and 'nonpartisan'?

I thought you wouldn't . . .

Of course, this problem isn't limited to the Democratic Party. I distrust both major political parties equally. I believe both of them put their own partisan interests ahead of those of the country as a whole, and both are equally dishonest in their attempts to mislead, gull and hoodwink us, the voters, into supporting them and their policies and positions. If Goldman Sachs can be accused of favoring the Democrats, there are other companies who can be accused of favoring the Republicans in the same way. If Republicans demonize George Soros for his partisan support of Democrats, the Democrats can (and do) demonize the Koch family for its support of Republicans. (Personally, I say good luck to both of them. They have the right to support any cause, party or person they wish. So do I. If it's OK for me to do that, why isn't it OK for them?)

Just remember . . . when you read about a 'survey' or 'forecast' or 'prediction' that favors one political party's positions or policies over those of its rival, the odds are pretty good that the information is at least suspect, if not downright slanted. 'Follow the money', indeed!

Politicians! Grrrr!





Peter