Word: soft
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Sometimes candidates find creative ways to use soft money. During the primary season, for example, wealthy individuals gave some of their soft funds to independent foundations set up by Jack Kemp, Bruce Babbitt, Pat Robertson and Gary Hart, who were campaigning for the presidential nominations. The foundations used the money to produce position papers on the issues for the % contenders...
Petroleum companies and their executives are among the largest contributors of soft money. Their greatest fear is that the next Administration and Congress may try to help balance the budget by raising taxes on gasoline. Oil and real estate baron Nicolas Salgo gave more than $500,000 to the New York State Republican Party. Great Western Resources of Houston donated $100,000 to the Democrats. Los Angeles-based Arco played both sides of the contest, with a $135,000 contribution to the Republicans and $85,000 to the Democrats...
Critics charge that the soft money and large PAC contributions to candidates amount to little more than sophisticated vote buying. When tax reform came before the Senate Finance Committee in 1986, its 20 members received $969,000 from insurance PACs and $956,000 from energy PACs, according to a report by Common Cause. Says Nancy Kuhn, a fund raiser for Dukakis in New York: "It's no mystery why the chairman of the finance committee can raise more money than the chairman of the judiciary committee." Even some members of Congress conceded, in a 1987 survey, that campaign contributions have...
...Many politicians have come to expect business contributions as their due. Thomas Mann, director of governmental studies at Washington's Brookings Institution, describes PAC contributions and soft-money donations as a "mild form of extortion." Businesses, he argues, are only responding to pressure from politicians. "Congressmen let them know that if they don't play the game -- and it takes money to play -- then someone else will," Mann says. More and more, executives who refuse to become involved in politics via the money route could find it harder to do business...
...After signing the pact in Washington last week, Foreign Secretary Raul Manglapus maintained that the U.S. had come close to meeting Manila's minimum demands in a "creative" three-part package that consists of $481 million a year in cash and direct assistance, as well as $355 million in "soft" loans and financial guarantees. The beauty part, according to Manglapus, is a complex arrangement that may amount to as much as $900 million a year in debt relief for the Philippines, which owes foreign creditors $29 billion. Nevertheless, critics in the Philippines charged that the government of President Corazon Aquino...