s will develop a PAC, establish a set of issues that it promotes politically. If a politician is campaigning for an election with corresponding views, then it is in the best interest of the PAC to contribute to the campaign. More importantly, corporations are to contribute to groups and individuals not directly affiliated with a candidate, such as the GOP. These groups or individuals can register, persuade voters, endorse a platform, advocate a candidate and oppose another. The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment of the Constitution protected this type of spending as a form of free speech in its 1976 decision, Buckley vs. Valeo. These donations are referred to as “soft money” because they are not directly related to a campaign. The absence of regulation on soft money donations results in the option for corporations to contribute millions of dollars to further their political interest. This advantage has a profound effect in the corporate political strategy. “[Corporations] can simply treat politics as a business expense, a budget item like advertising, research and development, or public relations” (Clawson, Neustadl, and Weller 109). Through the strategy of the use of campaign contributing “soft money”, corporations have vastly increased their influence on political issues. This new corporate political influence has succeeded in their campaign to minimize threats to profitability. These threats were reduced most noted during the Reagan years when the Republican Party dominated the government. “The administration has made significant cuts in social spending, particularly in low income programs, and made plain its desire for deeper cuts; achieved a massive, and massively regressive, revision of the Federal tax system in 1981; dramatically scaled back the enforcement of regulations that posed any significant limits to business power”, (Cohen and Rogers 38). This success demonstrates...
