From another thread: A common complaint, and I agree. What people don't realize is that a major part of the problem is campaign finance "reform". Running a national campaign is expensive. You need to run ads on TV, radio, newspapers, etc. You need to travel all over the country. You probably can't work during this time. And how are you supposed to raise money? Go around the country begging for it in $2000 increments. Can you imagine trying to raise millions of dollars in $2000 increments? It's absurd. It has basically limited the pool of possible candidates to millionaires and people with the name recognition to raise the money. We need to scrap the entire campaign finance system and replace it with one rule. Report all your donations on the internet immediately.That's it. If you have a few millionaire buddies who are willing to finance your campaign, great! Or if the union or company X wants to bankroll someone, fine. So long as it's out in the open, the voters can decide if the source of your funding somehow taints you. Look at Steve Forbes. He's this nerdy guy with a lot of good ideas (mainly, the flat tax). He ran for president several times but never got the nomination because he's too much of a nerd. Why couldn't he bankroll Newt Gingerich? Or some other person who shares his ideals? All this horrible tangle of campaign finance laws does is limit our choices and help keep incumnants in office. That's why campaign finance laws are easy to pass. They give a huge advantage to those already holding office. They have the name recognition and the power of their office to help them raise money. Getting rid of campaign finance laws would result in a far better selection of candidates and help challengers defeat incumnants.
Bull. The very rich have the money to pay lawyers and accountants and flat out bribe politicians to avoid taxes. With a flat tax, and no deductions, they can't avoid the taxes. And, since the tax system would no longer punish them for success, they wouldn't bother. Not to mention that all the time and money spent now on filling out tax forms and paying accountant, lawyers, etc would be freed up. But, any comment on the thread topic? The flat tax comment was just one example. Why can't someone who supports a flat tax give someone else who supports it enough money to run a campaign? So long as it's out in the open, what's the problem?
i think that the government should fund campaigns. it would allow people who really aren't wealthy to run which would give us better caNDIDATES
No it wouldn't, it would only allow them to make sure that they never were voted out, your solution would put the politicians in charge of the money needed to run, and you think that they would share that money?
what i mean is when you run everyone gets a set amount of money to run a campaign with which the government supplies
I knew that would be the alternative offered. But, like Buffalo, I don't trust the government to finance its own campaigns. Of course the incumbents would rig such a system such that they would never lose. Just as they've rigged the current system. We need to get rid of the system altogether. A free people ought to be able to fund their campaigns however they want. Let the voters decide if a given contribution renders a candidate unsuitable.
Why not have devoted TV channels that are free of charge for anyone to go onto to be seen to run for President? Radio as well. Right now there's PBS that could easily let anyone talk for free if they wanted to do so but they don't.
Because most of the public are slugs who would never watch those channels. You need ads that appear in between shows people actually watch to get your name out there. How many people watch CSPAN?
