Recognizable lessons

Richard Fulton

Today I would like to give a short reminder of how our political system works. In so doing I will use two basic examples from current policy decisions, one from the legislative and one from the executive.

It’s not too hard to find examples of the process in which legislation is produced. For today, I choose a recent bill that passed the Republican Congress with virtually unanimous Republican votes for and nearly unanimous Democrat anti votes. As such this is a representative issue of the split in our congress.

The bill allows the telecommunications industry to take the information they can mine from your use of the computer and other devices and sell that information for huge profits.

Wonder why those ads pop up that are directly related to a recent purchase on line, or even just an inquiry you made as part of a search? Robo calls? It’s because of the ability of the telecommunications business that runs your services.

Their computers can keep track of everything you put on your devices and sell the information to people who want to sell something to you. It’s a lucrative business byproduct of your innocent use of their primary service.

The FCC in the last year of the Obama administration put limits on these activities. They wanted to protect the privacy of American individuals. Naive thought, to be sure.

Congress can’t pass major bills on health care, immigration, tax reform or a host of other issues, but they can surely vote out a bill to enrich telecommunications and their main customers—the business community. (You use to be their main customer, but that now has changed, you are only an information mine now.)

How did this happen? The business friendly Republican party rushed through a bill countermanding the FCC ruling and eliminating your privacy. Why did they do this since they continually tell us they are a friend of individual rights?

Privacy it seems is not one of those rights.

The industry spent $136 million in order to get this legislation through. While monies from the industry do go to Democrats, most flows to Republicans. Indeed, your very own representative and Senator were prime beneficiaries: you know, the ones who voted for the bill.

Sam Graves has taken $31,000 from the industry and Senator Roy Blunt received $185,000, second only to the all powerful Speaker of the House Mitch McConnell.

So you see, another example of the adage that the legislation process, at least in part, is greased by large amounts of money.

In the executive branch the president has ample opportunity to make dramatic gestures to give the impression that he is fulfilling his promises and/or is progressing one of his key policies.

Donald Trump is a master of the process. He has used Executive Orders to give the impression that he is accomplishing what he promised instead of directing policy changes. Most are more smoke than fire.

A case in point is the recent order he signed and held up for the cameras to see. It deals with what he says are hiring abuses in a visa program used by high tech and other expert-centered companies.

Jobs for Americans he says. The order is aimed at foreign experts brought to the U.S. because of their expertise in a specific area, computers for example. This will stop these foreigners from taking American jobs, he says.

The ruse is that it does no such thing. It only looks for detailed reports on the area of visa misuse. Reports not actions. Have we heard this before? What shelf do they go on when they are finished?

A classic use of bait and switch used by politicians since the world began.

Richard Fulton is an emeritus professor of political science.