Selling Out America's Democracy: How Lobbyists, Special Interests, and Campaign Financing Undermine the Will of the People

New
Hardcover
2008
$84.39

America's historic greatness is in decline, subverted by moneyed special interests and their lobbyists who take advantage of our system of campaign financing to thwart the will of the people. Monuments to the impact of factions include inadequate efforts to curb global warming, infrequent increases in the minimum wage, no universal healthcare, unchecked inner-city crime, and limited stem cell research. Ineffective political leadership, corroded by special interest manipulation, has landed the nation in foreign intervention that takes American lives and spends obscene amounts of U.S. resources. Moss portrays the motivations and methods of those who corrupt our political system and betray the legitimate interests of the American people. He quantifies the gains reaped by beneficiaries of lobbyist successes. Selling Out America's Democracy focuses on Washington insiders who serve the interests of narrow factions that seek to control the national agenda. Telling interviews represent the views of Congressional and think tank staff, lobbyists, media experts, foreign diplomats, and nonprofit citizen advocacy groups. Moss concludes by advancing a program of policy changes calculated to revive our democracy.

Synopsis

America's historic greatness is in decline, subverted by moneyed special interests and their lobbyists who take advantage of our system of campaign financing to thwart the will of the people. Monuments to the impact of factions include inadequate efforts to curb global warming, infrequent increases in the minimum wage, no universal healthcare, unchecked inner-city crime, and limited stem cell research. Ineffective political leadership, corroded by special interest manipulation, has landed the nation in foreign intervention that takes American lives and spends obscene amounts of U.S. resources. Moss portrays the motivations and methods of those who corrupt our political system and betray the legitimate interests of the American people. He quantifies the gains reaped by beneficiaries of lobbyist successes. Selling Out America's Democracy focuses on Washington insiders who serve the interests of narrow factions that seek to control the national agenda. Telling interviews represent the views of Congressional and think tank staff, lobbyists, media experts, foreign diplomats, and nonprofit citizen advocacy groups. Moss concludes by advancing a program of policy changes calculated to revive our democracy.

$84.39

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 248
Publisher: Greenwood Press
Published: 30 May 2008
ISBN 10: 0313345511
ISBN 13: 9780313345517
Book Overview: Selling Out America's Democracy identifies how the forces of special interests, the system of campaign financing, and moneyed lobbyists work together to weaken political leadership, distort U.S. policy, and betray the legitimate interests of the American people.

Media Reviews

Economic consultant and former public servant Moss argues that American politics has been corrupted by special interests, moneyed lobbyists, and the system of campaign finance. He supports this argument through interviews with a variety of Washington actors, including a lobbyist, a European diplomat, and individuals on both sides of the Washington political divide. He then describes the deleterious impact of this corruption in failing to address global warming, raise the minimum wage, fix the health care crisis, or address inner-city crime. He also connects the system's deteriorating political leadership to the tragedy of Iraq and offers a number of measures to solve the problem, including charging the American Political Science Association and other non-partisan groups with developing candidate information profiles, founding a Federation of Public Interest Organizations....providing public financing for all federal elections, and restoring Federal Service capabilities and expertise. - Reference & Research Book News

Author Bio

Alan L. Moss is an economic consultant and author. He has served as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow in the U.S. Senate, Chief Economist of the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division, and Adjunct Instructor in Economics at the University of Virginia's Northern Virginia Center. He is the author of Employment Opportunity: Outlook, Reason, and Reality.