Got this interesting press release August 15th from an outfit called “MapLight” which tracks who gives political contributions to whom…

Contribution Profile of Members of the Deficit “Super Committee”

Aug. 15, 2011 – MapLight has conducted an analysis of campaign contributions to the 12 members of Congress appointed to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. The members of the so-called “Super Committee” are Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.),  Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.),  Rob Portman (R-Ohio),  Patty Murray (D-Wash.),  John Kerry (D-Mass.), and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Reps.  Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas),  Fred Upton (R-Mich.),  Dave Camp (R-Mich.),  Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), and  Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.).

To download a spreadsheet featuring an analysis of contributions from PACs to Super Committee members (not including employee contributions) click here.

Top 10 Industry Contributors to Super Committee Members

Industry    Totals
Lawyers/Law Firms    $31,529,149
Securities & Investment   $11,221,416
Democratic/Liberal    $9,647,264
Health Professionals   $9,321,588
Real Estate    $8,793,350
Education   $8,568,460
Misc. Business    $7,902,021
Business Services  $6,563,524
Women’s Issues   $6,396,728
Insurance   $5,693,595

Top 10 Organization Contributors (PACs and Employees) to Super Committee Members

Organizations     Totals
Club for Growth   $1,008,884
Microsoft Corp.   $810,100
University of California     $629,495
Goldman Sachs   $592,684
EMILY’s List     $594,883
Citigroup Inc.   $561,081
JPMorgan Chase & Co.     $494,316
Bank of America   $349,566
Skadden, Arps, et al.    $347,356
General Electric   $340,935

Methodology: MapLight analysis of campaign contributions from Jan. 1, 2001 – Dec. 31, 2010 to the 12 members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. Campaign contributions and industry classifications established by the Center for Responsive Politics ( OpenSecrets.org).

Link to this data release here .

MapLight, a political money tracker, reveals money’s influence on politics.

COMMENT: Looking at who is giving money to which Congressman or Senator…one can probably gusess what the Committee of 12 is going to come up with.

I once had a discussion with a high-ranking Mexzican government official about corruption in Mexico versus the United States. His comment was “the only difference is you can buy your politicians openly.”

Imagine if you can $14 trillion which is the current national debt.

For all the fuss and furor in Washington…no one is even getting close to really crunching the problem.

First we have to quit spending more money than we take in in taxes and fees. The budget has to be balanced so the deficit does not keep growing. A trillion dollars of deficit spending a year adds up fast.

The only way to balance the budget and reduce the deficit is to reduce spending and increase revenues.

Cutting federal spending to a level where that spending does not exceed existing revenues is imperative.

This is exactly what millions of us had to do when we lost our jobs or saw our incomes reduced in the recession.

But we will not get there if there are any “protected” expenditures. Everything has to be on the table.

But just balancing the current budget does not solve the $14 trillion deficit problem.

We need to wipe that deficit out.

How about reducing it by $1 trillion a year…14 years…deficit gone.

We’re not going to do that without additional revenues.

There are three paths to revenue increases…eliminating tax loopholes….using more “enterprise fund” activities at the federal level (fees for services like cities and states do)…and grow the economy. Does not see like any of these items are really on the agenda right now.

But what if any revenue increases such as closing tax loopholes was used exclusively to reduce the deficit?

As they say when one is in a hole…the first thing you have to do it quit digging.

Everyone in punditville is sharing ideas why Obama got shellacked and the Republicans gained 60 seats in the US House of Representatives.

Here’s my take on what is needed if Obama is going to have a chance at a second term in office.

Obama made four serious mistakes in his first two years.

The first one was to push health care reform instead of dealing with the economy. While there are lots of good things in the health care legislation, not much of those things have any impact right now. And right now is when America needs some help creating jobs. The health care package needs some serious work and the sooner that gets done the better and this issue gets off the table. The heath care package threatened a massive expansion of the government including the requirement we all have to buy heath insurance or get penalized. When you’ve lost your health insurance because you couldn’t afford it because you didn’t have a job…this is too much to swallow.

The second mistake was the bail out and stimulus packages which bailed at the rich and didn’t stimulate the economy sufficiently to create jobs. We can’t afford any more debt and folks reacted to the bottomless pit feeling. Some of that may come from first hand experience with losing income and then crashing personally. No one offered to bail us out as individuals when we hit the rocks. We’re on our own here struggling to make ends meet and it rankles to see bankers get saved and workers struggling to pay the electric bill.

The third mistake was the obvious disconnect between the folks on the street and Obama’s inner circle of advisers and cabinet members. They may be really bright people but they’re out of touch with the street. I especially had problems with Homeland Security Secretary declared the border was secure. If you are interested in paying for a tour, I can show you explicitly why that is not true. I’ve been giving tours to foreign media and American documentary film companies about what is actually happening on the border.

The fourth mistake and this is the one that trumps the other 3 is Obama let Congress run loose defining the issues and solutions, so Obama’s version of what it is to be a “Democrat” ended up being defined by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Obama sat back and watched Congress make sausage.

If Obama really is more of a centrist as he claims, then he has to define the agenda for Democrats and define what a centrist Democrat actually is. He isn’t going to be able to do that with Reid and Pelosi still holding the bully pulpits in Congress. Reid and Pelosi need to do something else the next 2 years, and some new faces emerge in Congressional leadership from the Democrat side that are in touch with the street.

Right now it looks like the same old gang running the show on Capitol Hill defining what as “Democrat” is. That has failed, and will ensure a Republican takeover of the Senate and the White House in 2012 if alloed to continue.

Arguably the extreme left of the Democratic Party and the extreme right of the Republican Party are not where a majority of Americans are at right now. Both extremes have the ability to run the country into a ditch if left to dominate the agenda of the country.

Obama has a window of opportunity to redefine what a “Democrat” is….and mainstream the party. But he will have to speak up and voice that definition even if it means asking Reid and Pelosi to step down and get out of the way.

Or he can continue to let existing Democrat leaders define the party to the extreme left and end up looking for a new job in January of 2013.

“Full speed ahead. We can hit that ice berg a second time and break it up.” Last words of the captain of the Titanic.

A 12 step plan for Democrats

(Lets start the week out with a little tongue-in-cheek look at the 2010 election campaign)

In a new strategy to win control of the US House and Senate in November, Repuiblican strategists have launched a new campaign against President Barak Obama and the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.

“You might have noticed that days started getting shorter since June 22nd,” said a spokesman for the GOPs new Save Our Daylight by Defeating  the Darned Democrats committee.

“The shorter days are Obama’s fault and the fault of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.”

“If this trend continues we will live in darkness and cold for eternity.  The solution is to elect Republicans in November,” the source added.

GOP candidates will be promising to reverse the trend of shorter daylight hours by the 22nd of December if they get majorities in the House and Senate.

The campaign will be called “Save our daylight – elect Republicans to Congress.”

“Our argument is that pretty much everything that is going wrong right now in America , whether it is the oil spill in the Gulf, high unemployment, soaring health care costs and millions of illegal immigrants hiding in the country, are all Obama’s fault and are being made worse by the Democrats who run Congress,” said the Save Our Daylight by Defeating  the Darned Democrats spokesman. “The save our daylight campaign is just an extension of that blame game.”

Save Our Daylight by Defeating  the Darned Democrats strategists are following the lead of Arizona, which made illegal immigration a national political issue by SB 1070 which ordered its local police to crack down on illegal aliens.

 ”There’s no real way making local cops deputy Border Patrol agents will actually do anything useful to stop illegal immigration, but the legislation stirred things up big time in our favor,” said the SODDDD spokesman.

“Arizona proved you can invent an issue out of thin air, exploit people’s frustrations with ineffective federal action, stoke up a climate of fearand anger, and change the political landscape,” added the SODDDD spokesman.

“The shorter days will be very apparent by November,” said the GOP spokesman. “We’ll be running a lost daylight clock so every day we lose a few minutes of light, folks will know whose fault it is.”

The new Save our Daylight campaign will also show how many illegal immigrants have entered into the country each day.

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