JC Disciples
Political Fund Raising in America
Politics and money go together like a hand in a glove. After reading a large number of editorials, talking to friends, and thinking about this issue, I think Americans really are faced with three choices. We can leave the system as it is and only make minor adjusts to try and close 'loopholes' in the current laws. Our second choice is to fund political campaigns as a general budget item and disallow anyone from giving money directly to the candidates or parties. Our third choice is to allow any American citizen the opportunity to give any amount they would like to a candidate or party, but disallow any corporation, business or organization from funding a candidate or party.
The problem with the first solution is that it is no solution at all. Instead it attempts to 'patch' a system that is in fact breeding corruption. It forces candidates to beg for money from the lowest common denominator in the American public. It also forces people who are currently holding political office to spend a great deal of time to raise funds for their upcoming campaigns. The term 'pander-bear' is pretty accurate for what our politicians have to do these days to raise enough money to run.
The problem with the second solution is who would decide what is a legitimate party or candidate and who isn't. Also how would the money be divided up. Would the American people be willing to be taxed another few billion dollars a year so that there would be a large enough pool of money so that every federal candidate would have sufficient funds to run a crediable campaign.
The only real solution is to allow American citizens to give as much money as they want to the candidate or party of their choice. The only requirement of candidates and parties would be to provide full disclosure (on a regular and on demand) to the Federal Election Commission and any news organization. Accepting money from either non-citizens or companies, organizations, or groups would cause the candidate or party to forfeit all of their funds for that campaign.
The third solution would allow a candidate with a vision for America to find a few wealthy individuals willing to finance the candidates campaign. Because people would have opportunity to know who those individuals are we would have a fair chance in deciding on whether or not those individuals are 'buying' a candidate or not. It would mean a man like Colin Powell could find 100 individuals willing to give him between $1 to $10 million to fund a campaign in 2000. As it is now, Mr. Powell or any other candidate is forced into campaign fund raising now so that they will have a 'war chest' large enough to fund a crediable campaign. This causes any worthy candidate to appeal to the lowest common denominator in America.
The argument that wealthy individuals would have too much influence if the third solution is implemented, ignores the reality of our current system. Our current system forces wealthy individuals to give money to 5, 10, 20, or 100 PACs (with $5000 cap each), which allows them to have virtual anonimonity. By using my third solution there wouldn't be any PACs and we could know exactly who gave money to each candidate or party.