Pharmaceutical industry special interest contributions win again

FOR RELEASE – October 7th
Contact: Rick Hubbard (802) 253-8544

As Sen. Jim Jeffords and Rep. Bernie Sanders publicly squabble over recent GOP efforts to weaken the popular prescription drug bill, Rick Hubbard, Independent Vermont candidate for U.S. Senate weighed in with the following comments.

“Here is another example of how big contributions from special interests, this time from the pharmaceutical industry, continue to influence legislation in ways that hurt ordinary citizens.” 

This time legislative leaders, eager to please the industry, crafted a provision that would make the bill expire after about seven years. To keep it going after that time, Congress would have to vote on it again.

“It is not enough to focus on this one example while ignoring grater problems in our political system that continue day in and day out to produce legislation that transfers money from citizen wallets to corporate coffers.”

“To put citizen interests first, we must change the entire way money influences politics today. We must remove from Congress the excessive influence of big campaign money from special interests, and repair our democracy to restore citizen representation.”

“Broad and comprehensive campaign finance reform, with public financing, is the key to passing legislation that puts citizen interests first.  Currently $1 billion dollars is the total average annual cost of all campaigns for federal office. Most of this money comes from special interests, not in small amounts from large numbers of citizens. Incumbents in Congress want this money to gain advantage over their challengers, and this is where the system goes wrong.  Members of Congress have tremendous incentive to please these special interest groups and this affects legislation.”

“We can and must provide our representatives with incentives to pass legislation on behalf of all citizens. Additional disclosure and eliminating  soft money (the heart of the McCain/Feingold legislation supported by Senator Jim Jeffords),  do not go far enough to achieve these reform goals. Too much special interest money is still left in place to influence legislation. To achieve true reform, we must completely remove the influence of special-interest money by replacing it with public financing. This requires an average annual investment from our public treasury of about $10 per American family, about $1 billion. Passing legislation on behalf of all citizens can annually keep as much as $500 to $1,000 in the pockets of each family, rather than transferring it to special interests. This is a return on investment of 50 to 100 times.”

“Unfortunately, Jim Jeffords does not support public financing.  Without it, Vermont citizens will continue to pay.”

“Other benefits for American citizens go well beyond the money saved. Repairing our democracy and restoring faith and trust in our elected representatives and institutions of government provide priceless benefits to us and our children and to future generations of American citizens.”

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