There’s a lot of absurdity in Washington, D.C., as politicians tend to focus on the needs of their party more than those of the people that elected them, and John Oliver took 20 minutes of last night’s Last Week Tonight to shed light on one of the crazier and just downright sad problems occurring right now in Washington: congressional fundraising. So what exactly is wrong with it? Well, members of Congress continue to take large chunks of time out of their schedules to not help create policies or work towards bettering the United States, but to call wealthy individuals who will make donations to them and their party, helping to secure their positions in Congress.
As Oliver points out, it’s disappointing to see just how much time members of Congress spend on the phone, asking for money. According to the Last Week Tonight host, they typically spend anywhere from 25 percent to 50 percent of their time fundraising, although when it’s two years till an election, that number is actually estimated to be 66 percent, meaning that the majority of Congress is spending two-thirds of their time on the phone or holding fundraising events.
“And if two-thirds of the work you do is strictly about the money, you’re not a legislator,” Oliver said. “You’re Robert DeNiro at that point.”
To get an even clearer picture of just how bad this fundraising problem is for members of Congress, Oliver sat down and interviewed Democratic Congressman Steve Israel, who will soon be retiring because he claims that he cannot “spend another day in another call room making another call begging for money.” The interview is pretty informative and really fun, and it involves the two men drinking terribly cheap and, in John Oliver’s opinion anyway, disgusting Long Island wine out of a bag. How can you beat that?
Watch the clip from Last Week Tonight With John Oliver below:
[Photo via YouTube]
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