As long as there is no public financing of election campaigns, politicians will sell out to the highest bidder (and that will never be the average citizen who worries about wages and national security).
Well, T, we already have the option of giving towards elections at tax time...
Even if all other campaign sources were made illegal, which has constitutional problems, I wonder if the American people would give enough?
It would also most likely open the "fairness doctrine" question again and Rush and Sean would have to split there private air time amongst the candidates, which is another constitutional boondoggle. If we just say, only private citizens can give, a limitation on the amount would have to be enforced or we would have just wealthy citizens electing their "guy".
How would you suggest this "public financing" be done?
Tiger: How would you suggest this "public financing" be done?
No K Street lobbyist spends time and money bending the ear of congressmen without the expectation of getting a greater return on their lobbying dollars than they spend, like, for example, when pharmaceuticals lobby to forbid the government from negotiating for the price of prescription drugs for seniors. If congress appropriated funding directly for elections and forbade the influence of ALL outside money, AND defined campaign ads as public service announcements which stations would be required to air to retain their FCC license (which has been the reality since WWI when the airwaves were nationalized), it would be a small upfront investment with a huge payoff: No more corporate welfare. Of course, this is a pipe dream, since the same corporations will lobby under the existing system to block this idea from taking root, no matter which party is in control.
...hmmmm, sounds much too convoluted and capable of being sidetracked, derailed, cheated, etc.
No... the general rule of "less government is more" is better. "McCain-Feingold" proved that.
I've been reading Fifty-Five Men, one of those American Heritage books on the formation of the Constitution. The Founding Fathers purposely made the Senate more amenable to influence from the land owning wealthy and the House directly responsible to the people. We can only change things by being a threat, by "threatening" enough to reduce government's size and therefore its detrimental effect
Lately, we have demonstrated how to threaten by our massive campaign against illegal immigration (which we haven't won yet and may not). This kind of "threat" can go further; marching in the streets, disrupting the congressional members when they're home, etc. - everything short of "armed insurrection" (just talking here G-Men, relax).
We're at the beginning of a world-wide "dark ages", IMO, and we can head it off by bringing our "Bone-neaded" leaders to task - but it will require massive effort. Perhaps America can become an example again for the other countries.
Tiger: We can only change things by being a threat, by "threatening" enough to reduce government's size and therefore its detrimental effect
And what is the nature of this threat? It is a threat to withhold one's vote (or donations to the campaign), thus cutting short the career of the offending politician. The only way to make America an example to other nations is to remove the necessity for threats to get our public servants to do their job, and forbid them from serving two consecutive terms. By taking re-election completely off the table, the representative or senator will then be able to devote his time to serving the people rather than just the interests with big dollars. His motive for doing that will be to create a good record to run on after another individual has served in the intervening term. Again, this is a pipe dream, it would take a Constitutional amendment to accomplish it.
6 comments:
As long as there is no public financing of election campaigns, politicians will sell out to the highest bidder (and that will never be the average citizen who worries about wages and national security).
Well, T, we already have the option of giving towards elections at tax time...
Even if all other campaign sources were made illegal, which has constitutional problems, I wonder if the American people would give enough?
It would also most likely open the "fairness doctrine" question again and Rush and Sean would have to split there private air time amongst the candidates, which is another constitutional boondoggle. If we just say, only private citizens can give, a limitation on the amount would have to be enforced or we would have just wealthy citizens electing their "guy".
How would you suggest this "public financing" be done?
Tiger: How would you suggest this "public financing" be done?
No K Street lobbyist spends time and money bending the ear of congressmen without the expectation of getting a greater return on their lobbying dollars than they spend, like, for example, when pharmaceuticals lobby to forbid the government from negotiating for the price of prescription drugs for seniors. If congress appropriated funding directly for elections and forbade the influence of ALL outside money, AND defined campaign ads as public service announcements which stations would be required to air to retain their FCC license (which has been the reality since WWI when the airwaves were nationalized), it would be a small upfront investment with a huge payoff: No more corporate welfare. Of course, this is a pipe dream, since the same corporations will lobby under the existing system to block this idea from taking root, no matter which party is in control.
...hmmmm, sounds much too convoluted and capable of being sidetracked, derailed, cheated, etc.
No... the general rule of "less government is more" is better. "McCain-Feingold" proved that.
I've been reading Fifty-Five Men, one of those American Heritage books on the formation of the Constitution. The Founding Fathers purposely made the Senate more amenable to influence from the land owning wealthy and the House directly responsible to the people. We can only change things by being a threat, by "threatening" enough to reduce government's size and therefore its detrimental effect
Lately, we have demonstrated how to threaten by our massive campaign against illegal immigration (which we haven't won yet and may not). This kind of "threat" can go further; marching in the streets, disrupting the congressional members when they're home, etc. - everything short of "armed insurrection" (just talking here G-Men, relax).
We're at the beginning of a world-wide "dark ages", IMO, and we can head it off by bringing our "Bone-neaded" leaders to task - but it will require massive effort. Perhaps America can become an example again for the other countries.
Tiger: We can only change things by being a threat, by "threatening" enough to reduce government's size and therefore its detrimental effect
And what is the nature of this threat? It is a threat to withhold one's vote (or donations to the campaign), thus cutting short the career of the offending politician. The only way to make America an example to other nations is to remove the necessity for threats to get our public servants to do their job, and forbid them from serving two consecutive terms. By taking re-election completely off the table, the representative or senator will then be able to devote his time to serving the people rather than just the interests with big dollars. His motive for doing that will be to create a good record to run on after another individual has served in the intervening term. Again, this is a pipe dream, it would take a Constitutional amendment to accomplish it.
...everything short of "armed insurrection"
More government IS NOT THE ANSWER!
Post a Comment