Campaign Finance Reform Is Bunk

Another issue on which I'm skeptical. I've long been flirting with rather the opposite view, that for this system to properly work we should deregulate campaign finance altogether, at least in terms of dollar limits. I do support transparency in campaign finance.

Why can't a billionaire jump in behind me and fund TheBadCabbie for president campaign? Campaign finance laws. Why can't that guy who just won the lottery donate a million dollars to my presidential campaign? Campaign finance laws. A billionaire, or even a multi-millionaire, could absorb some of the cost of an expensive campaign, I cannot. At a one thousand dollar per person or company limit, I'd have to cast a very wide net to finance an adequate campaign, an unlikely proposition.

It doesn't really solve the problem in my opinion. You can limit contributions to fifty dollars per person, it still doesn't change the fact that vast sums of money are spent on these elections. An individual holding greater wealth will still have a tremendous advantage. A campaign that would be an insurmountable expense to an individual of median income might be only a modest expense to a wealthy enough individual. Campaign finance laws don't really change this, at all.

What then, do we ban a person from spending their own money on their own campaign? That seems wrong to me. If I'm willing to give my time to the torturous occupation of government, why shouldn't I be able to also devote my personal resources to said campaign? To ban such would seem to me to be an infringement of a fundamental right. If I want to throw all my chips in to run for office, that should be my right, it should be anyone's right.

Super-pacs and other loopholes sort of make individual contribution caps hurt the little person in my opinion. The big players can still get the big money, but an average gal will be hurt by individual donation capping because she probably won't have access to the same machinations. Even if you close all the loopholes, it just creates another one. Companies will pump their CEO's full of money and then send em off to run for office.

Perhaps a limit on the amount of money that can be spent on a campaign? I dunno. Even that seems problematic. I'm not sure what the right answer here is, I just don't think the common proposed reforms are the right solutions either.

I thought this point of view deserved its own thread so that it can be properly discussed. What do you think?

I don't disagree with the idea, but at the same time I don't want any of these things to decide who has the most money for the next election-

-Google
-Amazon
-Pentagon
-Apple
-Disney
-Israel
-China
-Russia
-California

Etc, etc, etc.

The church current laws don't work (obviously) but eliminating them doesn't actuality help.

Campaign finance limits won't help, dark money would just fund "volunteers"

Your average folks can't win an election. Ironically you'd need a communist government to even try- giving equal air time to every candidate.

I'd be curious to see what a national tournament would produce, though. Every single town votes on their champion, then it goes to county, region, state, time zone, etc.
At every level people would have to pick their person.
Might be interesting, at least.
Not like our current terrifying system of "screw you or screw them"

originally posted by: a325nt
Your average folks can't win an election. Ironically you'd need a communist government to even try- giving equal air time to every candidate.

Why not? I see no reason why an average person couldn't win an election, properly financed.

a reply to: TheBadCabbie
Part of the reason for the expense of American elections is your insistence on holding public-vote primaries. This means that a hideously expensive television campaign has to be run twice over, once to beat the other candidates from the same party, and again to beat the other party's candidates. This must double the cost, automatically.

If there were no primary election campaigns to be funded, then you could carry out a serious reform by transferring political funding from the individual candidate to the party, so that the party woud be responsible for financing the election campaign proper. This would take away the advantage enjoyed by the man who was already wealthy in his own right, and nothing would depend on a candidate's ability to raise extra funds by his own efforts.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Thanks for your input. I disagree though. Removing the primary election from our process would reduce our choices of whom we can elect even further. Our choices already are fairly limited, eliminating the primary elections will just make that worse. I don't think it really helps the average man's chances to get elected because you've got the party choosing who their 'winner' will be. Of course primary elections aren't really public elections, they are an election within that party to choose that party's candidate, which the party leadership doesn't have to go along with if they don't want to.

Also, it doesn't help the average man who decides to run for office get onto the ballot. A wealthy man still has a better shot at it, or at least the man who can pull more strings within that institution does. It doesn't provide a system that most could navigate if they chose to. As far as I can tell, only deregulating campaign finance altogether does that.

Nvm, just being stupid.

I thought I'd give this thread a little nudge. How do the present campaign finance laws, or future proposed laws, help even the playing field? Even if you closed all the loopholes, a wealthy man could still run on his own wealth. Even if you banned that, I don't think you can remove money from the process.

I think the ideal aim of campaign finance reform would be to stave off the influence of repugnant interests wielding big money. It doesn't seem to work in practice though. Reform laws have not achieved that result. Repugnant interests routinely do wield influence with their big money, easily sidestepping existing laws.

I don't know the answer to this social problem, but I don't think campaign finance reform is it. I don't see how it will truly provide the desired result, and I'm not certain that the desired result should be the desired result. Perhaps deregulating the thing altogether might be a better way to go.

I don’t think free airtime is unreasonable or impossible at all. And I think they should all be given a 2-4 hour interview, ala joe rogan, where they discuss, not in 30 seconds, what their plans, philosophies, history, etc are, preferably while getting high or drinking. And we should also be monitoring popular opinion both locally and nationally, by a free app, and be monitoring politicians voting records and comparing that with their local public preferences so we can clearly see which politicians are actually representing their voters.

Hell, I’d be fine if they dosed all elected politicians with sodium pentathol or whatever today’s version is, and had to give a full explanation of their history, philosophy and motives.

The thing i can not go along with is banning companies from giving money but not unions.

Unions ARE companies.

They operate under a incorporation charter the same as companies and are labor companies.

This is why the democrats only want to stop outside money from companies as it helps the GOP but wants to still get there union money.