Publicly funded elections

[The Big Al]

I've been hearing about this lately. What if candidates in elections were provided their funding by the government. Each one is given a set number of dollars (let's say in senate race 20 million each). Granted this means a slight tax increase (though three presidential candidates each having 100 million dollars would cost every man woman and child in the country a total of a dollar and any money left can be given back to the tax payers as credits the following year). However it coud slove several problems.

1. It would get the corporations out of the congress. It would encourage more loyalty towards the people and not the drug company who is promising to pay for your reelection.
2. Politicans can do their jobs instead of having to worry about raising movement.
3. You wouldn't have one candidate raising a lot more money than the other that they can throw into mud slinging knowing their opponent can't afford to fight back.
4. You wouldn't have mega wealthy people coming in, pulling 60 million dollars out of their year like a parlor magician, and using it to yell over their opponent.
EDIT:
5. People who typically don't vote might be more inclined to vote because it's their money funding the campaigns.

I'd be willing to a couple bucks an election year for those.

 

[evkl]

I don't want to pay for a candidate whose positions I don't support, and run the risk of him squeezing his way into office. If I don't like him, I want to be able to support his opponent.

 

[The Big Al]

I don't want to pay for a candidate whose positions I don't support, and run the risk of him squeezing his way into office. If I don't like him, I want to be able to support his opponent.

That's something I was thinking about. However, this is meant to equalize the process and if that means a candidate you want to win wins, then that's democracy. However, the current system favors those who pander to the wealthy because you and I can't proivde the support that corporate leaders can. So not only does that mean it's their candidates who are more likely to win because they have more resources to swoon the voters but they're more loyal to the corporations who give them the money than the people that vote for them. Even if the candidate you don't support wins, you this have their ear because it's you money and your vote he's after.

EDIT: And private organizations can put in their say on their dime. Not to support or attack candidates but to energize their base. Such as unions energizing workers. The NRA energizing the gun nuts. ect.

It's not a perfect process but what is. I'm just saying it could be a step for the people to take back their democracy.

 

[GrnMarvl14]

You seem to forget that in a democracy, there are more than just two parties. ANYONE can run for president. And in any presidential year we have AT LEAST a dozen candidates of varying credibility who run. You can't just fund the two major parties, you'd have to start funding EVERY party. And I do NOT want a serious Nazi Party candidate in the race. If the ONLY way they can get money is from the government, then what's to prevent every small party from suing to get their own funding? If you can present yourself as a legitimate political party and can put up a candidate...why WOULDN'T you be taken seriously?

And, keep in mind, the government ALREADY gives a small amount of money to any political party that attains a certain percentage in a presidential race.

 

[The Big Al]

I know. I made this thread because of what's happening here in Michigan. We got this jokester named DeVos going against Governor Granholm. This guy has put 60 million dollars of his own money into his campaign and has saturated the airwaves. In the meantime, Granholm can't afford to answer him.

And this guy is lying out his ass. He making the claim he will bring jobs to Michigan. He's either lying or he's one of the idiots they put on Street smarts and shows them a picture of China and asks them what country is it and they say "Michigan". Either way, I don't want this man as my governor but he's got more money than God and can basically go on a tear knowing Granholm won't speak up to save her funding.

 

[Pieomon]

One problem is it is incredibly hard to regulate 3rd party support that spends their own money to put the ads on.

 

[Mozz]

 

[The Big Al]

One problem is it is incredibly hard to regulate 3rd party support that spends their own money to put the ads on.

I was thinking about that as well and the answer would be to runoff elections. The candidates would be voted on in March, then the two highest candidates (unless one got more than 50% of the vote) would run until Novemember.

Who's that Mozz?

 

[Mozz]

Jon Corzine, the shithead governor of NJ. He has 'a lot of money to buy elections'

 

[Eszett]

As I stated ere on SPPf, this plan is noble in construct but leads to too many issues down the road. Are we going to allocate funds to every prospective candidate? How will we distribute them? At this stage in time, such a plan needs to have some more clearly-defined stipulations that entail its enactment. In its current haphazard condition, either the government will be accused of exhibiting bias to certain parties or the taxpayers will be angry that their funds are going to the campaigns of over ten candidates.

As you mentioned on SPPf, the rich wouldn't be able to pull their funds from the candidates and that it would go to every candidate, but in response, I state that the vote of the rich will be especially influenced by those who appear to cater to them most. I fear that this plan would cause too much of a fight to woo the groups that need to give the most money, i.e. the rich. Also, while runoff elections are a possibility as you mentioned as well, legislation in the direction is not looking favorable in the least; nigh everyone in Washington doesn't mind the current voting system as it is, and to shift to a new system would put an extra burden on the taxpayers.

 

[The Big Al]

As you said, it's a noble endeavor and unfortunately these are not noble times. Perhaps we will live to see a day when the fallacies of our current voting system will be dealt with.

 

[Mozz]

The "best" people don't want any part of politics due to the muckraking. That's the biggest flaw we have, too bad they have that "freedom of the press" thing on their side

 

[Fig]

What can be done is severly limit individual contribution (including from the candidates themselves) to campaign funds (iirc, up here the limit from any individual is set to become 2 or 3 grands, and corp. interests are just plain banned from getting involved), and force candidates to publicly release their campaigning accounts. Perhaps even set a max limit to how many money any given candidate can spend on his campaigning.

Probably also kick the third parties out of it by forcing ANY ad related to the campaign (attacking a candidate, or supporting one, etc) to be approved, paid for and counted against his max spending by one of the registered candidates. Otherwise it's too easy to sneak backdoor funding with things like the Shitboat Veterans et al.

Even so that's not perfect, but it already improves things a bit.