Influences, influences!
By Richard Van Slyke

A primer on the most influential organizations in the U.S.

When thinking of political power, the most common perception is that it is a battle between the two major parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.
Both parties present themselves to the American public as the guardians of a set of values and ideologies, thoughtfully packaged to appeal to voters who associate with those values. This is called a platform.

The American Enterprise Institute is one of the oldest think tanks in the U.S.
Founded in 1943, shortly after the country entered WWII and almost all the production in the country was geared for the military industry, its main goal was and has remained to influence national policy in favor of big business.
It was so successful that since its creation there has been a permanent revolving door between its members and government positions.
The list of AEI’s members and donors is a who’s who of the most powerful people in American business.

The Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973 with the financial support of Joseph Coors (Coors breweries) and later Richard Mellon Scaife.
It is a think-tank, and does not officially lobby.

The foundation advocates “conservative” values, mainly free enterprise and strong defense. It has an interest in a wide range of issues, political as well as social.

The Project for the New American Century is the home of Neoconservatives (as they call themselves), also know as Neocons. They unabashedly present themselves as proponents of war at any cost against anyone who doesn’t go along with their views on America’s predominance over the world.

The U.S. Military: A Giant, still growing. It’s big, but it’s never big enough.
By Richard Van Slyke

The Giant Figures :

Bases, bases, bases…
The U.S. has over 700 military bases spread all around the world, and maybe up to 1000 according to some estimates.
In terms of international impact, it’s a giant. But within the U.S. budget, it’s an ogre.
For 2008, the official budget is projected to be close to $500 Billion, not counting the cost of wars (around $40 Billion).
In comparison, China’s budget for 2007, the second largest military budget in the world (2008 projections are not known yet), is estimated to be around $140 Billion (officially $65 Billion), leaving England, the third largest budget at less than $70 Billion way behind, and making all other countries feel like midgets.
However, the military budget of the U.S., like for many other countries, is only a rough estimate because of the many other defense-related expenses that are not officially included in it.

The Federal Election Commision is a regulatory agency created by Congress in 1975 to oversee the campaign financing laws in the U.S.

It is supposedly independent, but its six members are from the Democratic Party and the Republican Party only (three from each).

Following approximately a year and a half of stalled discussions between Congress and the President regarding appointments, the FEC finally is back to all six members since July 2008.

In 2007, a bill was introduced in Congress to attempt to replace the FEC with a Federal Elections Administration board.

Links to Campaign Financing articles – U.S.

The most informative web site:
Your guide to the money in U.S. elections.
http://www.opensecrets.org

The Hoover Institution, Campaign Finance Site:
A lot of very good basic information about campaign finance.
http://www.campaignfinancesite.org/

From the Hoover Institution: a brief history of campaign finance in the U.S.
http://www.campaignfinancesite.org/history/financing1.html

A Wikipedia page on the principle of campaign finance as practiced in various countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance

Electronic Voting Links

Links to most major organizations. Many have links to other organizations.
Their front pages often take it for granted that you already know about the issue.
If you don’t, by browsing through these sites you will soon have all the basics.
This list is not exhaustive, and new organizations are forming on a regular basis.
More will be added to the list.
If you know about an organization not listed here, please let us know.

www.blackboxvoting.org

www.electiondefensealliance.org

A political blog covering elections issues and mainly electronic voting.

Proportional Representation

Home page of the World Policy Institute, with the list of the electoral systems worldwide.
http://www.worldpolicy.org/globalrights/prindex.html

Wikipedia: Proportional Representation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation

Mount Holyoke College Department of Communications.
Explaining the Proportional Representation system.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/BeginnningReading/PRsystems.htm

WorldPolicy.org: An excellent overview of Proportional Representation and how to implement it.

U.S. Financial Overview - Federal

In this section we will attempt to analyze the overall financial situation of the U.S. by agglomerating information regarding the various sectors of the government part of the economy.
The first thing that becomes obvious is how difficult it is to obtain official figures that reflect the true situation.
Typical examples:
The Federal Budget government figures do not include revenues from Social Security tax surpluses (hundreds of billions of dollars), which are transferred to the General Funds every year and spent on things other than Social Security.

Medicare represents the bulk of unfunded debt not accounted for in the U.S. Federal Budget.
Which means that there will come a time, in a not so far away future, when U.S. citizens not only will probably have reduced Social Security benefits, but also will not be able to rely on the health benefits that they were promised, and that they paid for during all their working lives.
This will be a harsh reality for the younger part of the present times U.S. population, if they ever intend to retire. There are already talks about raising the retirement age.

Promises, promises...

In March 2005, President Bush said in a speech that the Social Security Trust Fund is only IOUs, pieces of paper, “which may be worth something, and it may not be worth something”!
What he was talking about is the U.S Government bonds that represent the trust fund in which money is supposed to have accumulated for future Social Security payments.