The True Cost of Politics

Now that the Wisconsin recall election is over, I'd like to shed light on something many of us may not have considered in all this: money.

You may say money has been a huge part of this election. Walker raised over $30 million in his recall campaign, trying to buy a win. Everyone's been talking about it. But I'm not talking about it in that way. Consider the following: $30 million could...

• Send 30,000 ShelterBoxes to families in need of disaster relief. Each box contains a tent, water purification and storage, a toolkit, and many more items that are essential when a home has been demolished.
• Give 60,000 cows to families in need of milk, via Heifer International. One heifer provides four gallons of milk per day, enough for a whole family and then some - not to mention a yearly calf, too. Assuming a minimum of four people per family, that many cows could provide for 240,000 people - more than the entire population of Madison, Wisconsin.
• 20 years of maintenance costs for the high-speed rail system we didn't accept. (See the Operating Costs segment here.)

I'm not suggesting Barrett didn't spend money on his campaign; he brought in $3.9 million for the election. That money could...

• Buy 6,661 metric tons of rice (based on current market value). For comparison, one person in Myanmar eats about 402 pounds of rice per year - that rice would feed 33,139 people.
• Help feed, clothe, and educate 156,000 children in the poorest parts of the world, through Children International.
• Cover approximately four years of UW-Madison tuition - for 40 students.

Yes, politics play an important part in our lives. But I think it's also important to remember all the lives that could be improved with money like this. Republican? Democrat? When Rome is burning, what does it matter? I wish I could say we can get back to the things that truly matter now. But money will be misspent like this over and over again. The many people we could help will go without.

P.S. I know some of you may wonder - I wrote this yesterday, well before any election results were in.