How many jobs could corporate ad spending pay for?

by: Adam L

Tue Oct 19, 2010 at 12:45:00 PM EDT

There has (rightfully) been a major focus on the fallout of Citizen's United and the impact on foreign government/corporate cash being funneled into buying attack ads and influencing elections. One other thing that I haven't seen brought up as much as it relates to the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars being shelled out for political ads, and really hits the message home:

Instead of spending millions and millions on Republican political attack ads, why aren't these corporations using the money to hire more workers?

How many millions did Aetna spend on attack ads during the health care debate? And how many hundreds (or thousands) of jobs was it cutting at the very same time?

And we know that Koch Industries' owners are regular and heavy donors to the RGA and Republican Party candidates/chapters. But they also laid off 150 people in their Wichita headquarters last year as well as another 115 in North Carolina just last month.

Here in New Jersey, the Chamber of Commerce is running ads against House incumbents in at least one District - on top of a number of other House and Senate races. While this is based on donations whose source does not have to generally be disclosed, Chamber of Commerce "dues" can be well over $100,000, and used at the discretion of the Chamber (which has reportedly run around 8,000 ads this cycle alone - just on behalf of Republican Senate Candidates.

News Corp, as we also know, donated $1 million to the RGA and another $1 million to the Chamber of Commerce just this past year (not to mention the major investment in the Fox News as the propaganda and misinformation machine that it is. On the flip side, maybe if it focused less on buying elections and more on its businesses, it wouldn't have sold Beliefnet and caused "a great number" of layoffs. Or the layoffs at IGN Entertainment. Or 100 or so last year at Fox Interactive Media.

I could go on and on and on. But the point is clear - the Republican Party and its candidates like to claim that they care about job creation and the "free market" helping the economy. But the truth is, they take in record profits and funnel them to the executives, generate huge losses and still funnel huge bonuses to their executives or - in this case - cut jobs instead of adding or saving them while wasting hundreds of millions of dollars which could be spent on their core business or helping the economy as opposed to buying elections.

Adam L :: How many jobs could corporate ad spending pay for?

Tags: jobs, Economy, congress, chamber of commerce, elections, (All Tags)

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How many jobs could corporate ad spending pay for? | 3 comments

How to succeed in Business (4.00 / 1)

And how many jobs could donations to Reform Jersey Now pay for? Sadly some businesspeople have found that the cheapest way to grow their own profits is through the pockets of politicians, and preferably under the cover of total secrecy.

"The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die." - Sen. Ted Kennedy

by: Bill Orr @ Tue Oct 19, 2010 at 17:49:51 PM UTC

Massive ad buys 'n shiny things. (4.00 / 1)

This is a good example of what insight comes from stopping and thinking about what's really going on instead of what the situation merely - with the help of massive ad buys, the best messaging money can buy, and pretty shiny things dangling in front of your eyes - can buy.

Excellent points in this diary.

It's not a particularly snappy signature, but here's what I think we need in the next NJ Democratic State Chair.

by: Rosi Efthim @ Tue Oct 19, 2010 at 18:13:21 PM UTC