The so-called Reclaiming Freedom Super PAC recently came out in favor of U.S. Senate hopeful, George Allen. Formed earlier in 2012, the PAC was put together by Republican “political operatives” seeking to take over the U.S. Senate for the GOP.
According to a release by Reclaiming Freedom, Allen’s political record is touted and in particular his abolition of parole and welfare reforms, his support of the Bush tax cuts, and his continued support for a balanced budget amendment (a politically practical pipe dream but an apparent political must for conservative politicians on the national stage).
At the moment, Allen’s latest Super PAC backer has no total expenditure data available to identify who the donors for the PAC are and whether or not it will draw from some of the same donors as other conservative PACs such as Crossroads GPS.
What’s clear from the name of the PAC is that it conceives of its mission as “reclaiming freedom,” a freedom which has apparently been lost under Democratic leadership. If this group and others like it mean the freedom of the wealthy to do as they please (i.e. to make risky investments that throw the U.S. economy onto the edge of financial collapse), then I would like to think they’re absolutely right.
With a shrinking middle class and a growing number of individuals in the economic extremes of prosperity and poverty, the freedom that groups like Reclaiming Freedom have in mind may only exasperate this income gap as prosperous groups and individuals use their political and economic influence to accrue more of both at the expense of the middle and lower classes of the U.S.
As the sociologist William Julius Wilson from Harvard argued,
“rising inequality is beginning to produce a two-tiered society in America in which the more affluent citizens live lives fundamentally different from the middle- and lower-income groups.”
Clearly, the “affluent citizens” have found their champion in former Virginia governor George Allen. So if you’re not part of that “1%” and you cast your vote for George Allen, you’re voting against your own political and economic interests.
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