My Thoughts on the Citizens United ruling and the power of money in politics will be discussed on today’s broadcast of The Advocates. I believe on strict limitations on spending for political campaigns, the removal of the influence of tainted money, the shortening of campaigns and, if possible, the public funding of federal elections.

The “right wing” of this country always seems to trash the rights of the many for the rights of the few, by hiding behind “original intent.” Again the Framers had no understanding of the modern world that would come about. As Franklin Roosevelt said, “out of this modern civilization, economic royalists carved new dynasties…The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody’s business.” (FDR’s speech accepting re-nomination to the Presidency, June 27, 1936.)

Also in his Second Inaugural, the late President said, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” (Second Inaugural, January 20, 1937)

Little really has changed in the minds of many of the old and new critics of the New Deal. But, did we go back to unrestricted capitalism, and therefore trash the SEC, NASD, and the Securities Laws of 1933, 1934, and 1940, wages and hours, child labor laws and the like? No, thankfully! Should we go back to the great enduring capitalistic legacy of the “Triangle Shirt-Waste Fire?” Or maybe we should trash the reform legacy of Ida Tarbel, Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis, and others who revealed to the public the abuses of private capital and power. Meanwhile how many judges did the “economic royalists” own? How many of them came from the bosom of private capitalism and the world of property? (Thankfully Holmes, Brandeis, and Cardozo didn’t!)

President Obama is facing another generation of problems that has come out of an era of greed and profit without a concern for economic sustainability and resiliency. In a sense this all goes back to the real legacy of Ronald Reagan. It is hard to believe that Reagan, who voted for FDR all four times he ran for president, would place a picture of Calvin Coolidge in a place of honor in his office. What had Reagan really learned? Interestingly, as much as Reagan seems to replicate Calvin Coolidge more than Herbert Hoover, George W. Bush seemed to have done the impossible. He seemed to have replicated Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover.

In a response to the issue of the Citizen’s United v. Chicago, it seems that a majority on the Supreme Court seems quite comfortable to go back to pre-New Deal thinking about the equality if corporations and individuals. As to unions, special interest lobbies, and others who bundle money for candidates, I also believe in limitations on their political contributions, directly or indirectly. But none of these NGOs and other association can match the financial firepower of corporations, and at least the unions, the NGOs and the interest groups reflect, in most part the feelings of their membership. How can corporations represent their diverse stockholders, who bought shares in their company for the purpose of investment, not ideological bias?

In conclusion, FDR said in his acceptance speech on June 17, 1936, for the nomination to the presidency, the following. His statement goes along way to reflecting my feelings towards society and government and how our leadership should act.

“Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales. Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.”