Thirteen percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, according to the latest Gallup poll. That low approval rating — up from an all-time low of nine percent in November — may be because raising money appears to be a major priority for politicians of all stripes.
Activist and scholar Lawrence Lessig spoke with Bill Moyers last year about why a focus on political fundraising leads to distorted policymaking and corruption in our government. “Remember the old image of the Skinner box, that, you have the rat, learning which buttons to push to get the food. Well, our congressmen live in a Skinner box. They live 30 to 70 percent of their time raising money to get back to Congress,” Lessig tells Moyers.
