In America, Affluence Equals Influence (U.S. News & World Report)

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“Politicians respond almost exclusively to the desires of special interests and the wealthiest citizens,” writes Dartmouth’s Charles Wheelan ’88 in his latest column for U.S. News & World Report.

Wheelan focuses on a new study in which researchers asked, “What groups in America get what they want out of the political system?” Part of the answer, says Wheelan, quoting the researchers, is that “interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

Wheelan, a senior lecturer and policy fellow at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences and a senior lecturer in the Department of Economics, says “If there is a modicum of good news, it’s that average Americans sometimes get what they want—but only because their views often coincide with what rich people want.”

Read the full opinion piece, published 4/22/14 by U.S. News & World Report.

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