Romney: Corporations Are People, Teachers Are Not

From the Washington Post:

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Tuesday that he thinks teachers unions should be banned from making political contributions because union leaders often negotiate contracts with Democratic politicians they’ve helped elect, a situation he called “an extraordinary conflict of interest.”

He said it is “a mistake” to allow unions to make such donations, which he argued represent “an extraordinary conflict of interest.”

“I think we’ve got to get the money out of the teachers unions going into campaigns,” he said. “It’s the wrong way for us to go. We have got to separate that.”

Romney contended that “the largest contributors to the Democratic Party are the teachers unions.” But a tally by the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign contributions, shows that the education industry is the third-largest contributor to President Obama’s reelection campaign, behind retirees and those in the legal field.

This is a completely unprincipled position but this is Mitt Romney we are talking about so that is no surprise. He has hundreds of millions of dollars coming at him from Super PACs funded by super rich corporate interests. Not just Romney, but the majority of politicians (especially Republicans) as well? How is THAT not a conflict of interest? How is THAT not a steaming pile of hypocrisy on his part to say this? If corporations can give unfettered amounts of money to campaigns, why can't unions?

I personally am against all of this money in politics: whether we are talking about unions supporting Democrats or corporations supporting Republicans. This is the danger of corporate personhood: that rich monied interests will drown out the voices of the people to whom government should be beholden. With too much money in politics, the representatives of the people and the stewards of power will inevitably have skewed priorities.