This is a key point. One of the problems we have right now is the extreme polarization between the two major parties. It just costs so much to mount national elections that it is dependent on vast sums of donations from corporations and PACs. This greatly inhibits third parties from emerging from the shadows, to the detriment of fair democratic play. Public funding also prevents the purchasing of influence and patronage that come with corporate donations. I don't worry about wealthy individuals, they have rights and they can only donate so much. The the Political Action Commitees that they control are getting out of hand and are not only buying much influence but actively campaigning, sometimes in a very dirty way, for their candidate while he keeps his hands clean. There is no way to break the influence-buying aspect of political donations without separating the giving from the receiving somehow. Making all fund public is one way. Another might be to make all donations confidential. A donor would give money (through an arbiter) to the campaign of a candidate, but the candidate would not know who or how much money each donor gave, only the total $ available to him. In this fashion a candidate could still be rewarded for good fund-raising, donors could freely contribute to their candidate of choice, but the winner would not be in a position of owing favors to individual donors. There may be still other ways to break the influence-peddling cycle besides public funding of elections. The matter deserves serious attention. But public funding may be the only way to break the duopoly of the Republicans and the Democrats in national politics.
again, your solutions involve collectivizing something. a bigger government taking more of our money from us for your whims. man, think about what this would mean if implemented. would people be forced by law to keep secret who they gave money to? don't you think people/corporations would just tell the candidate they gave them money? what are you gonna do, make them sign a non-disclosure agreement? this is just mind bogglingly poor understanding of how the world works. even if you could do this (you certainly cannot), people would just give the money to third party groups that are working "independently" of the candidate, just like i mentioned earlier with veterans for truth and moveon.org. so again we would be in the very silly position of investigating links between the candidate and those groups and it would be a huge charlie foxtrot. you dont like the candidates, vote for somebody else. if there are no good candidates, mobilize more people with your views and produce a new candidate.
Did you even read the whole response? I said nothing about bigger government, nothing about my "whims", nothing about collectivisation. I said ways should be explored to separate the donations from the patronage and that public funding is only one way to accomplish this. So, you are basically in favor of people/PACs/corporations being able to simply purchase patronage, political influence, and government appointments that they aren't qualified for? Good job, Brownie!
"public funding". who do you mean if not the government? thats us, the collective. thats bigger government. you also mentioned a ridiculous anonymizing program that could never work. who would enforce and run this program, a team of secret-keeping fairies? more big government. your solutions all involve bigger government, more collectivization, just like i said. "public funding" is almost as clear a way to say it as possible. for any problem, your solution involves more government rules, and more government money. more freedom taken from the individual. why should i have my money forcibly taken so idiot politicians can try to convince me they are not idiots? **** them i dont want to foot the bill for them to annoy me! i would prefer not to spend money on people pissing me off. i am in favor of people voting for whoever they want.
You are missing the entire point in your familiar attempt to rant against big government. It doesn't have to be government and it sure ain't government money involved. Private campaign donations would simply go into a independent blind trust (private) where the candidates will be paid all of the money donated to them just without the influence strings attached. Anyway it wasn't a solution, just an idea to be considered. Who said anything about your money being forcibly taken? Not me. I said that you could contribute as much money as you like to the politician of your choice, whom you are free to vote for . . . just without the opportunity for you to receive unfair patronage for it. As are we all, whatever is your point? The question was "Do you favor special patronage favors in return for large contributions?" If not, how would you go about divesting the patronage from the donations?
Public funding for campaigns was just one idea. I think our current system is flawed. Politicians need money to run for office. Most people don't, or can't afford to, donate large amounts of money to a candidate just to try & get them elected because they are the best. No, money is given to these candidates because of what they will do for you - and that means politicians catering to special interest groups because they are most able to pool their money. What are some other suggestions for fixing this flaw? Or do ya'll not consider this a problem?
are you forced to give anonymously? what happens if you tell the candidate? if you are not forced to do it this way, then why would you bother? under you system, are people who donate money required by law to keep it a secret? because if they are not, they are gonna tell the candidate. and if it is illegal to tell the candidate you donated, it is a clear violation of thie right to free speech. yes, i considered it, immediately realized it is impossibly terrible and am amazed that anyone could could have typed it out and not realized in that time that it was terrible. i assumed when you said "public funds" you meant tax dollars. taxes are not voluntary. vote for politicians that will do what you want. if you think they are being bought, dont vote for them. for example you could vote libertarian, they favor lessening the power of the government, and as such are not the tools of corporate interest. a libertarian would be trying to aboloish many of the government programs that you complain are headed by unqualified political appointees.
bought politicians are a problem, but not the worst problem. i do know that all the cures i have heard are worse than the disease.
Not really (maybe a little). Make them use the media to present their message to voters. Debates, talk shows etc. Even though most people don't pay much attention to that sort of stuff, they might if it was the only source for candidates to get the attention of voters. Of course, for this to work, we would need the media to do their part and be satisfied with reporting the news and not making it (Dan Rather got the official axe from CBS today or yesterday, I believe). They should stop peeing away money flying all over the country making campaign stops. They waste way to much money doing this; McCain was in Jackson yesterday for some sort of republican shin-dig. Said he will be in Michigan and South Carolina next week. Waste waste waste.
Hypothetically, money isn't a necessity to running for office. But it would require further regulating of the media, and still wouldn't be enough because politicians that would through more money at it would have a leg up in the race. That's why I also mentioned perhaps limiting the amount of funds that could be used to run for office.
