In the context of today’s economic realities, you’ve got to be willing to look at the patterns over time.
Republicans in congress can often be blamed for cronyism, and for corruption driven by greed.
But none of them cut their teeth with hard core Marxist subversives. All prominent Democrats have these associations.
So if we’re faced with cleaning house, do we sweep the floor and dust off the shelves or do we start by cutting off the stream of raw sewage seeping in from the basement?
I vote Republican 95% of time.
“The finance, insurance and real estate sector contributed more than $86 million to members of Congress between 1997 and the key vote on Gramm-Leach-Bliley in November 1999. As the graph below shows, on average, those lawmakers voting “yea” received about $180,000 in campaign contributions from individuals and PACs in the financial sector during that period. Those who voted “nay” received about $90,000 each, or half of what supporters got.
There was little difference in the money collected by Republicans who supported the bill and those who opposed it; the 255 GOP supporters collected an average of $179,175, while the opponents in their ranks-and there were only five of them-collected $171,890. On the Democratic side, however, there was a wide gulf, as the graph indicates. The 195 Democrats who supported the Financial Services Modernization Act had received an average of $179,920 in the two years and 10 months leading up to its passage, while the 59 Democrats who opposed it received just $83,475.
Many of the Democrats who voted for Gramm-Leach-Bliley are still in Congress, as are many of the Republicans. Republican presidential nominee John McCain was recorded as absent for the 1999 vote. Democratic nominee Barack Obama was not serving in the Senate then, but his running mate, Joe Biden, supported the bill. McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, at the time.
For Gramm-Leach-Bliley’s Democratic supporters, at least, the contributions from that time suggest they were cozier with the financial sector than the bill’s opponents and, thus, more inclined to vote for a piece of legislation that — at least until Wall Street’s recent collapse — greatly benefited their contributors.”
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/money-and-votes-aligned-in-con.html