Stop the bickering

On Tuesday, Starbucks Corporation CEO Howard Schultz called on business leaders to stop funding political campaigns until Congress stops the partisan bickering. A CNBC poll on political donations in light of the debt debate fiasco last month showed that 89% of respondents agreed with Schultz. Shortly after, CNBC showed a comment by political commentator Robert Reich saying that the reason companies contribute to U.S. politicians is because they see it as an investment. With that in mind, will Schultz’s view prevail? Unlikely.

It is heartening, and discouraging, that it has gotten to the level of a CEO to voice this complaint. Witness the 89% who agree. Despite these voices, politicians continue to rail that they represent the voice of the American people and that it is for them that they are fighting. Nonsense. The vaunted American people for whom they claim to be fighting are sick of their posturing and ineffectiveness, of their bromides anc clichés. Yet things continue the same as always. Why? The answer is simple: money.

Here is the “best way” to understand U.S. politics in four bullet points.

• Republicans and Democrats both play to the rich 1% and to the following industries: big oil, big pharma, defense contractors, and banking and insurance. Add the NRA.

• Republicans take their talking points from Fox News, but are really laser focused on bullet no. 1. Fox talking heads berate the Democrats and the President, both of whom take money from the same donors as the Republicans, but who argue a different ideology.

• No matter who is elected, it is never as good, or as bad, as voters expect it to be. President Bush never banned abortion and we didn’t get Martial Law. President Obama failed to save the economy and we didn’t go socialist (or soshilist; same thing). Well, for the most part that might be true, but many people have suffered, and continue to suffer under a Democratic president, as badly, if not worse, than under a Republican president.

• The vote that matters is the vote that’s local, like a town hall vote for the school budget or a zoning law. As a result, voting for selectmen, city council and maybe the mayor and governor, matters and voting actually changes things. For Congress and the Senate, see bullet points 1 and 2. Well, abdicating national politics to the rich and powerful only confirms their domination and power.

CNBC “Squawk on the Street” hosts asked why Schultz was making these statements and not bigger name CEOs. In particular, they asked why executives like Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase CEO, are not coming forward to complain about Washington, too. After all, lack of confidence in Congress has been something nearly every average trader and money manager in the market has been talking about all summer long, including in interviews here at Forbes. For that answer, see bullet point No. 1.

Dimon wants less regulation, even after the financial crisis. That lack of confidence is a smoke screen.

“I’m not a politician and I’m not here to prescribe policy. But as a business man who employs over 100 thousand people…I want to see congressional leadership,” Schultz told CNBC Tuesday morning. “We have a profound crisis of confidence in America and that problem stems from Washington,” he said. Stems? I doubt it. Washington excacerbates the problem, but the fault is not in our politicians, but in ourselves.