You probably suspected this, but research confirms it.  It doesn’t matter what WE want.  It’s the 1% and the big corporations who decide what policies get put into place.   It’s hard to keep a straight face when anyone describes America as a “democracy.”

A study by professors at Northwestern and Princeton looked at nearly 1,800 policy issues over a 20-year period between 1982 and 2002.  According to their data, when the rich support a policy, it has a 45% chance of becoming law. And when they oppose it, it has only an 18% chance of being enacted.  And this was long before Citizens United.

This is why, in spite of huge majorities supporting a living wage[1], the federal minimum is stuck at $7.25 an hour, and people like tipped workers and farm workers aren’t even covered.  Some 50 million Americans are living in poverty.

This is why we’ve seen cuts in programs like food stamps, in spite of the fact that in any given month, 1.7 million households were living on cash income of less than $2 a person a day. 

This kind of deep poverty is commonly associated with developing nations, but has steadily increased in America since the mid-1990s.[2]  These program cuts are also in spite of the fact that most Americans now believe that poverty is not caused by poor people being “lazy,” but by circumstances beyond their control.[3]

This is why, in spite of the fact that Americans overwhelmingly support renewable energy, our government continues massive subsidies to the fossil fuel industry and spends a tiny fraction of what European countries do to support renewable energy development.[4]

This is why, regardless of which of the two “major” parties controls Congress or the White House, somehow we never make any real progress.

Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United and McCutcheon v. FEC have made it even easier for corporations and wealthy individuals to spend vast amounts of money to buy candidates and policy outcomes. 

The Green Party doesn’t take corporate money.  We don’t have a lot of supporters among the 1%.  We rely on individual donations from people like you.  That’s why WE support the majority of Americans on things like a living wage, safety net programs, and renewable energy – and why YOU should support the Green Party.  It won’t be easy to get our democracy back.  But organized people CAN beat organized money, and we are honored to be a vehicle for people to start taking our country back.