It's all based on our pay-to-play political and media systems.
Say you're CEO of a large company that's killing the planet. Your job is to maximize profit, period. (If you don't, the board will fire you and hire someone who will.) There is huge popular support for government regulation that will protect the planet but reduce your company's profits. ("Save the planet" doesn't appear anywhere on your job description, but "maximize profit" definitely does.) So, you pay for professional bribery experts ("lobbyists") in D.C. and state capitals to influence legislation favorable to your company and unfavorable to protestors. At the same time, you purchase huge ads from profit-oriented media outlets that have a double effect: first, the ads convey the message you choose; and second, the large expenditures encourage the media outlet to editorialize in your favor in order to keep your ad business and thus increase profit.
The problem goes to the core of our economy and our political system. As long as wealthy corporations and individuals can purchase legislation and influence public opinion, not much will change. Sending money to politicians won't solve the problem of money in politics - we're always going to come up short. The solution is to get money out of politics.
Originally the MVP was the horse trade we had to make with Manchin to get the IRA passed. It would be helpful to understand the negative of MVP in context with the good the IRA will do. I think Biden is wrongly vilified here. The largest climate legislation in history passed under his watch.
Rose Abramoff is a hero. Also, not that it needs to be said at this point, but Joe Manchin can go screw.
It's all based on our pay-to-play political and media systems.
Say you're CEO of a large company that's killing the planet. Your job is to maximize profit, period. (If you don't, the board will fire you and hire someone who will.) There is huge popular support for government regulation that will protect the planet but reduce your company's profits. ("Save the planet" doesn't appear anywhere on your job description, but "maximize profit" definitely does.) So, you pay for professional bribery experts ("lobbyists") in D.C. and state capitals to influence legislation favorable to your company and unfavorable to protestors. At the same time, you purchase huge ads from profit-oriented media outlets that have a double effect: first, the ads convey the message you choose; and second, the large expenditures encourage the media outlet to editorialize in your favor in order to keep your ad business and thus increase profit.
The problem goes to the core of our economy and our political system. As long as wealthy corporations and individuals can purchase legislation and influence public opinion, not much will change. Sending money to politicians won't solve the problem of money in politics - we're always going to come up short. The solution is to get money out of politics.
Originally the MVP was the horse trade we had to make with Manchin to get the IRA passed. It would be helpful to understand the negative of MVP in context with the good the IRA will do. I think Biden is wrongly vilified here. The largest climate legislation in history passed under his watch.