I believe THIS is wrong. I believe most of you will disagree with me and I think I know why but I'd like to hear it from you.I say we'd save a heck of a lot of money if we just give every presidential candidate five million dollars and the same amount of free air time on television to run on and call it a day. Less expensive glitz, less traveling, less groveling in person, much less special interest involvement: tell politicians "just tell us where you stand.....then we vote."
Okay........attack Z! :-) (by the way..how could it be FEBRUARY already?)
20 comments:
I always write the word "hell" over the word "no" on tax forms that ask if I'd like to help finance the Presidential election with matching funds before I check that box.
I ran for President in 2008 and got one write-in vote in Florida without spending a dime on campaigning or even visiting Florida ;)
No, the federal government shouldn't be financing ANY candidates in any manner.
And EVERYONE over the age of 35 should run for President in 2012. ;)
I see your reasoning, but don't believe we should have to pay a friggin' dime to presidential candidates-- BUT I think there should be an allotment of how much they may spend on their campaign.
I really like Beamish's idea of everyone running for president!
I would like to see them end federal financing of elections. We need to cut spending and this is a good place to stop.
I would also like to see massive changes to how donations are made. I think it would be okay to raise the ceiling on how much an individual can donate but make it illegal to indicate that they donated. In other words, donations would have to be anonymous.
Our system of funding elections right now is nothing short of bribery. Businesses/individuals/organizations make donations and expect a return on their investments.
If they believe in the cause, let them donate but no return on the investment.
Hi Z!
Beam said, "No, the federal government shouldn't be financing ANY candidates in any manner."
What he said.
I figure Obama broke the ceiling. You don't have to have any experience or qualifications to be US President. Heck, you don't even have to be an American. ;)
I'm for free speech. Let the rich people pay for the election adverts... ;)
Prohibiting politicians from raising money —requiring they rely on public money, violates the First Amendment. I nevertheless understand the rationale used for making such a proposal, but it simply won’t wash. And, by the way, the argument used to promote taxpayer funded campaign spending is the same as one posed much earlier: we should pay Congress a salary in order to keep them from accepting bribes. We can see what happened over the years and why the average member of congress makes ten times the average income of John Q. Citizen. At least now we understand why serving in congress has become a career rather than a calling …
I too have a problem with donated funds going into a "slush" fund so to speak.
The abuses that can come from it a very apparent.
I always write the word "hell" over the word "no" on tax forms
GREAT idea, Beamish!!
off-topic fun:
bang!
Cut the campaign time down to 90 days before the election and that would do away with the need for a billion dollars to fund a campaign. Four commercials a day per POTUS candidate would be three too many IMO but then they are no worse than hemorrhoid commercials. Of course they could all be on PBS since the taxpayer is already funding that propaganda machine.
I refuse to contribute via tax forms and like Bemish I wrote in RED-- HELL over the NO!
I totally agree with the piece, and the Republican response in an attempt at a smaller government.
Just give me a president with balls who declares "no more foreign aid whatsoever" and I will become a happy man.
I agree something should be done to make it easier for ordinary people to run for office and reduce the advantage of the rich. I'd also like to see a ban on lying TV ads myself. Maybe they could be confined to campaigning in some set way, such as by written statements in a certain format or something like that. Lot cheaper than TV ads. Really, I suppose there's no solution.
I think Ticker is exactly right: we need to limit the length of presidential campaigns; the United Kingdom does it from start to finish in 30 days
I would like the same but, I'm a bit pessimistic about it ever happening. There is just too many people making BIG money on this system's status quo. TV stations, newspapers, ad agencies etc. etc.
Chuck, you said "Our system of funding elections right now is nothing short of bribery. Businesses/individuals/organizations make donations and expect a return on their investments.
If they believe in the cause, let them donate but no return on the investment."
That is the whole problem; NO WAY do they not expect something back.
I don't know about the rest of Europe, but Germans have to get a certain percentage of popularity to qualify for the ballot, then they get funds from the government to run. They have very little tit for tat, very little lobbyists demand return on their investment, so to speak.
They have plumbers and architects in their Bundestag...not just LAWYERS.
AND they have a national ID card, which I know doesn't fly with you people at geeeez as much as it does me...I've seen it work, my husband said it worked well and he never felt 'Big brother", but that's another topic...the point is they SHOW THAT CARD AT THE VOTING PRECINCT, THEY VOTE, IT'S SWIPED, AND NOBODY CAN VOTE WITH THAT CARD AGAIN.
Remember the multiple voters I saw running around my precinct? "I moved...but I want to vote, so my name isn't ON your sheet!" "Okay!! NO PROBLEM, SIGN THIS BOOK and that's that!" (except a friend who works the precincts says they don't CHECK those books for multiple signatures/names!!!) This can't happen with a CARD.
Karen, if it's only, say, five million a candidate and there are only 2, we're not paying much individually...
As long as we don't charge our system, we're going to have terrible lobbying and paybacks, no way around it.
Mustang, doesn't Congress get a salary?
Ticker, I absolutely agree with you about cutting the campaign time down. There is NO upside to the whole YEAR we are accosted with ads and speeches and lies and pandering and ..etc etc......By the time it's time to vote I'm SICK OF THE WHOLE THING.
But, I think Scotty's right....the big money interests won't like it...I say "TOUGH"!
That's EXACTLY why we need to finance elections :-)
Limiting the length of time for campaigning would give incumbents an even bigger advantage than they have now. They have access to the bully pulpit 24/7, 365 days a year and to the media.
A challenger needs time to build name recognition, and to raise money. Besides, you can't limit speech. It's unconstitutional.
How would you discern between informing constituents and campaigning? You can't. Everything for politicians is political, whether we like it or not.
Obama has never stopped campaigning. How would you limit him?
I remember the days when we had what we called, election year. Now, it's all day every day, and we're in constant upheaval over it.
We didn't used to talk about politics all the time, and of course communications have increased because of the internet.
Our lives have been impacted by this in ways which are not always in our best interests. On the other hand we have so much information we weren't privy to years ago. It's really a two edged sword.
It's good to be so informed, but it also impacts our lives in ways that aren't so healthy, such as more stress, and concerns which can keep us up nights with worry.
I guess there's something to be said for that old saying, "ignorance is bliss". In a way, it is.
Pris
Obama has never stopped campaigning. How would you limit him?
Who says the fools in the LSM have to let the idiot on TV every week on any kind of show to show his azz. No other POTUS in history has made such an azz of themselves on TV as this idiot. Limit his time on TV to SOTU, another waste of time but historical, and emergencies.
Pris, you do make good points against shortening the campaign time....I think you nailed it reminding us about the news cycle and how it's all we EVER hear anymore.
I swear, I long for the days of "News at five, film at eleven" Oh, BLISS> Meanwhile, you led a LIFE, right?
It looks like I am a few days late on this one, and have not read all the other comments.
I came to the conclusion a long time ago that raising money to finance campaigns was an essential part of politics. The ability to raise money tells us a lot about the support a given candidate may have. Why vote for some person who has not appealed to enough people to raise enough money to get their message out to the public. I believe raising money is and should be a basic political requirement.
Whoever has the capacity to raise the most money deserves to win the prize. Having money is not a virtue, but being able to make it is the ultimate virtue.
We should trust the money makes a lot more easily than we should the moneys spenders in government.
boomotor
We believ the camppgne should be shorten and that no money from over sea's comes into america and those here can't receive any money from others. It must stop it's for the people of the usa leagal's. we must have everyone voting to have id shwon and legal papers and those tha are over sea's must sing infront of a noteary and show pictures and docuements and those that have them sent to our homes same thing. no Government or federal should finacne any candidates. we shouldn't have to pay for any presidents children ischooling they should pay for and their should be a limit on parties they should pay for and vacations their all to greedy any more and closed our borders no amnesty 's for any one or dream acts no reparation or totalizations agreements and nor treaties of our sea to un or giving any thing like alaska or big bend to any one Our English should be offical language of america and that should be now and no grants from our us depat,of educations for arabics to come and teach their history and language ,they want to give grants give it to our students to learn about america 's history and english and our flag's flying every where and national anthem too if we don't stop these people we will loose america and our freedom we must live with in budgets and spending it also should start at top paying jobs like the white house down. when are military isn't getting mush putting their life on the line they should be getting 140,000 not congreess or staffers 35,00 for them and 60,000 for congress and when they retire all pay their own way like we have to and they all should be cut to a resoniable about of retierment not what they are getting now and everyon e running for preisdent and vp or any office in the white house down shows their legal papers from now on. no more birth certificates if other states have stopped it we should too now not 6monthes from now. Freeze the obama's spending now
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