On campaign contributions and lobbying

[cryowizard]

We all know that politicians are bought and sold by special interests. No matter what party affiliation a politician is, someone is dropping that campaign contribution money into his/her "war chest", and that someone expects results to go a certain way once a politician is in office.

Now, I have a crazy idea. There are lots of details to be polished, but here it is in a nutshell: in order to prevent lobbying, finance federal elections from a federal budget. Sounds like another initiative that prolongs government waste, so prevalent in this country, doesn't it? But let's look at it closer.

1. Each contender gets an equal budget, say 50 million. (Small print -- there has to be a clause that says who is eligible for this and how). That way all contenders have an equal financial start.

2. Allocated budget is only available for EFTs, no cash withdrawals and funny stuff.

3. How they choose to direct that money is up to them, but of course, each penny of that money should be publicly tracked.

4. All hard and soft money donations from individuals, corporations, church groups and any other entities become illegal with severe civil or criminal penalties.

Wouldn't that reduce (I'm not hoping for removal) lobbying influence on politicians? If a Senator or President doesn't have to "bring the dough home" once elected, who knows, maybe he'll spend some time being useful to the country.

If you think 50M per candidate is a lot of money, consider the totals. Say we have 5 candidates in each big party's primaries, that's 500M, and say we're generous and give each primary winner another 50M to contend in national elections (say there are 5 parties). That's 750M total, once every four years, which is peanuts compared to tens of billions of tax dollars wasted on giving back to the contributors.

Or is this too crazy?

Comments

[cryowizard.livejournal.com]

Well, it's true anyone can give anyone 100 bucks, but nobody will be able to donate into the election "war chest" directly, since the expenses will be monitored at all times. A candidate will not be able to spend more than 50M officially. Now, handing $100 under the table is a bribe, plain and simple, and there are articles in the penal code for that already (they should be tripled for political "donations"). In addition, the most expensive part of an election is TV ad time, which is difficult to have paid in cash.

As to perks -- I'm not sure if that can be stopped completely. In fact, none of this can be 100% enforced. Ultimately, if people want to give someone money, they will, one way or another. The idea is not to eradicate but lessen this bribery practice. Having the budget federally financed may give a chance to reform politicians who will not have to court Big Money to get ahead, and will work directly with the electorate on principles. In other words, there will be more politicians of the "cleaner" nature, which should be good for the overall political climate in the country.