Who is squealing now?

Joni Ernst's recent email blast calls for the elimination of the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. That's the fund you can donate $3 to on your tax return.

Joni correctly points out that no current candidate is using this fund. The reason is, to do so you have to pass on the huge rivers of dark money flowing into politics since the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.

The fund was supposed to help people run for president without selling their souls to lobbyists and big corporations. Sen. Ernst appears to prefer funding from hidden sources, like the Koch brothers funding of her 2014 campaign. Hundreds of thousands of dollars later traced to Koch organizations propelled her from obscurity to national office, including $347,000 to knock out her main primary opponent.

As she said in her thank-you appearance at the private Koch Summer Summit, it was 'this group...this organization...that really started my trajectory.”

Joni ran on a platform of 'making Washington squeal.” So far the only squealing I've heard is squeals of delight from rich people opening their tax refunds.

Jerry Parks

Burlington